


Far More Precious Than Gold

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Dragon Shiro (Voltron), Dragons, Dreams, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mind Control, Near Death Experiences, Pirate Keith (Voltron), Pirates, Porn with Feelings, Rope Bondage, Size Kink, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Top Shiro (Voltron), Trust Issues, Trust Kink, trust me tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: Once, dragons ruled the Altean Isles. Theirs was a peaceful, prosperous kingdom, ruled by a good king and a wise princess.That Altea is gone now. The Altea that Keith knows is ruled by the Galra Empire, and it's a world where the few surviving Alteans are traitors to their kind who serve the Galra and wreak terror upon the people, while boys like him become pirates - and meet nasty ends.But then one of the last Alteans saves him, gives him a precious gift, and changes the course of both their lives in one fell swoop.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 84
Kudos: 973
Collections: Black Paladins Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Eek! I'm so excited to finally post this: it's my fic for [The Black Paladins Big Bang](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/blackpaladins2020), which was (somehow) my first, so I guess that's a fandom milestone or something? sure, let's go with that.
> 
> I worked with the lovely artist [Sue Mary Rakocy](https://twitter.com/SueMaryRakocy) whose art you can check out and give all the love to [here](https://twitter.com/SueMaryRakocy/status/1276208453044908041) <3 they capture these two so well always, but I especially adore these pieces (I may be slightly biased).
> 
> This is an incredibly self-indulgent fic, and also kind of a whack one, because I really just sat down and was like "I like dragons. I also like pirates. Soulmates are neat. And Sheith. What if, like.....all of the above?" So I gotta thank [Hero](https://twitter.com/heyfoxprince) for being my hero (sorry not sorry) and reassuring me in my Very Uncertain beginning stages of this when it was just me sitting in front of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 with the first 10k of this like "is this anything???" and they were like YEAH IT'S A THING KEEP WRITING IT. 
> 
> Also a biiig thank you to [Robin](https://twitter.com/stardropdream) who kept me (mostly) sane throughout this (you should also [check out her fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878704/chapters/60192403)) and with whom I had too many "you're great & need to appreciate yourself & your work" "no YOU'RE great & need to appreciate yourself & your work!!!" convos. such are the friendships between fandom creators :') 
> 
> so! without further ado, here's this. when i say sheith love each other in EVERY universe i mean it lmao

Once upon a time, there was a scrappy little urchin boy whose daddy died in a terrible fire, leaving him with a chip on his shoulder that he carried with him from orphanage to orphanage until finally the nuns gave up on him and tossed him to the sailors, who turned out to be much kinder than the nuns, because the world can be funny like that. 

Funnier still, the orphaned urchin boy who became a wiry dock brat found that the best sailors were the ones who weren’t exactly in the Navy’s good graces. In fact, to call them sailors might be a bit of a misnomer. 

But pirate is a rude word. He learns that quick, the first time he sees a convicted pirate hanged. Other criminals, they brand, with F’s for felon or M’s for murderer. But pirates don’t get the mercy of disfigurement. A short drop and a sudden stop is the Galra Empire’s idea of mercy for them.

The Empire is wrong, though. The urchin boy turned dock brat turned sailor learns that again and again. They can toss accusations of greed at pirates even as they keep those whose land they stole in chains; as they fight battles that could more accurately be called massacres; as they settle places that ain’t theirs to take; as they continue writing their list of sins which must now be twice as wide as the ocean herself. 

No, greed is the only language the Empire knows. It’s a wicked, insidious sort of greed, the kind framed as goodwill and civilization. The boy hates that word. Civilized shouldn’t mean clean cravats and velvet coats and gold buttons when your hands are dripping with the blood of countless innocents. 

The Empire’s greed was what brought them from their crowded cities and deadly factories to the Altea Isles, though they’re just called the Isles, now. It would be misleading to call it Altea, given that it’s been nearly a century since the Wars ended and the last of the Alteans were either slaughtered or imprisoned by the Galra. Most of the Isles’ inhabitants now are the ruling Galrans and the common mass of humans, seafarers lured here by those bloody Galran promises of civilization and prosperity. It’s a lie, of course. The Empire is good at telling those.

So this is the world the boy grows up in. It turns him into a clever man, a cautious man, though not cautious enough to not cause some trouble. He’s not really sure when he stops being a boy. His mates say it’s when he kills his first man. 

He’s sixteen, he thinks. It takes longer than he expected. He uses the blade his father gave him, and it’s an ugly death, and he lingers too long watching it in horrified fascination — that’s why he gets caught. It was supposed to be an easy job, robbing a ship still at anchor in the harbor in the dead of night, but they had a traitor in their midst. Everyone escaped but Keith. (That’s the boy’s name. It’s all he has left when they drag him into the prison cell block.)

He doesn’t go without a fight. He has a black eye, bruised ribs, and wrists raw from rubbing against the rusted manacles by the time they shove him into the cell. He falls hard, breath knocked out of him, onto the cold stone floor. The Galran guards who brought him there spit at his feet and look at him like one might look at a particularly pathetic street dog. Keith glares back at them, and they don’t take too kindly to that. They decide to kick him again — and that’s where the man in white finds them.

They all wear white, the ones who work for the Empire — at least, Keith  _ thought _ it was white, but when he sees this man, he realizes all the others wear a sort of yellowed cream, because this white is bright as bone, bright as the pale streak of silver in the man’s jet black hair. The silver falls over his brow, and as he enters the cell block, the two guards freeze. The man walks with precise footfalls, his polished black boots clicking neatly on the floor with each step.

“You two are dismissed,” he says. His voice is quiet, but not soft. It leaves no room for disagreement. The two guards exchange frightened looks, hastily nod, and leave in a hurry. Keith stares up at the man. His cell door is still open. He could make a run for it — the man is unarmed. But something tells him to stay put. The guards were Galran, yet they obeyed this man. There’s a deep power to him, and it is terrifying.

The man tilts his head. “Oh, dear,” he murmurs. “They’ve done quite a number on you, hm?”

Keith doesn’t answer. His heart beats, rabbit-quick. The man has stretched out his right hand, and in the space between his white gloves and his white sleeve something shimmers, silver, like intricate metalwork. Keith’s heard the tales of automatons, works of strange magic, but he never thought to believe them. The man sees him looking and smoothly pulls up his glove.

The man takes a step forward. Up close, Keith can see that he looks startlingly young. Twenty-five, maybe thirty. And yet his face is scarred, a faded slash across the bridge of his nose, and his uniform is finer than any of the others. “You’re no pirate,” the man murmurs. “You’re practically a child.”

Keith bristles. “You don’t know me,” he snaps. “You’re, what, a human playing at Galra officer? Hell do you know what makes a pirate?”

“A human playing at Galra officer,” the man repeats, and lets the words hang. “Hmm. No, I am not quite that.” He tilts his head. “Maybe I don’t know what makes a pirate, you’re right. But I would wager you’re a very good little thief, when you aren’t getting caught. Is that true?”

Keith frowns, sensing a deal. “You...want me to steal something?”

The man doesn’t quite smile, but he nods. “Or at least to try,” he murmurs. 

Keith rattles his chains pointedly. “They’re going to hang me,” he retorts. “Can’t steal anything with my neck broke.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the man says. “You won’t be hanged.” He looks off in the direction the guards went. “But they don’t know that yet.”

Keith doesn’t know what to make of this man. “Are you a spy? Or…” He trails off as another, impossible thought comes to him.

“Smart boy,” the man says, though Keith hasn’t said anything. “Now...I’m going to get you out of here, then give you a map. The map leads to the object you must retrieve.”

“Steal,” Keith mutters under his breath. 

The man blinks slowly. “Is it stealing if it was yours to begin with? Anyway. This map, it doesn't just lead to the object. It leads to an old ship and a great treasure.”

Keith’s eyes widen. “A ship?”

The man does smile then, small and soft. “That’s what I like to see,” he murmurs. “More interested in the ship than the treasure. Well — yes, if you find it, it will all be yours. Say — why don’t you and I take a walk?”

His tone is casual, but Keith sees more guards approaching from down the block, and after a moment’s hesitation nods and staggers to his feet. The man steadies him with a hand on his back, just above his manacled wrists, and walks him right out of the cell block and up a flight of narrow stone stairs. _ Some kind of tower?  _ The tower has small slitted windows with bars, and Keith peers out, seeing the bustling harbor and open ocean so close, yet so unreachable.

“Tell me,” the man asks, “do you trust your crew?”

Keith opens his mouth, then closes it. Every day before this one, he would have answered yes. But his crewmates left him for dead. “I don’t know,” he whispers.

“Mm.” The man glances down at him. “Then find a crew who trusts you as their captain if you don’t want this ship and treasure stolen from under your nose.”

“A captain!” Keith gasps. “Me? Sir —”

“You told me yourself you aren’t a child, but rather a pirate,” the man counters. “So which is it?”

The stairs end at a door. The man unlocks it with the keys at his belt — there aren’t as many as Keith would expect — and leads Keith inside. As soon as the door is shut, he uses another key to unlock Keith’s manacles, and he flexes his sore limbs, glancing about him. It’s clearly the man’s living space, and Keith shifts from foot to foot, anxious and beyond bewildered. “What do you want me to steal, then?”

The man goes to the small writing desk in the room and opens the drawer, then fiddles around in it before — Keith sucks in a breath. It has a false bottom. From the hidden compartment the man withdraws a piece of parchment. He smooths the parchment out over his desk and dips his quill into the inkpot, carefully sketching something small in the top right corner. When he’s done, he blows on the drying ink and shows it to Keith. Keith tilts his head. It’s a sort of softened diamond shape, almost like an oblong heart, with the suggestion of a raised ridge down the middle. It looks like…

“A scale?” Keith says, bewildered. He looks up at the man, then back at the parchment. 

The man nods. “Yes. It will be hidden amongst the treasure, likely, and it will be a pearly-pink sort of hue, like the sunrise.” His voice trembles, and he clears his throat. “It’s small; it would fit in your palm.” He pauses, looks at Keith’s hands, reassesses. “Well, in my palm, anyway.”

Keith furrows his brow. “You’re letting me go,” he says slowly, “so I can steal a pink scale for you?”

“Oh, no,” the man says. “You won’t be bringing it back to me.” He takes a new, smaller piece of parchment, and scrawls out some words. Keith doesn’t know his letters well, but it looks like a name, and an address. “You bring it straight to Madame Rose. She runs a tavern called The Lioness in West Arus. You tell no one of this, agreed? Be discreet, for your safety, and hers. When you give it to her, tell her Shiro sent you.”

“Shiro,” Keith repeats. “Is that you?”

The man, Maybe Shiro, looks about to reply when they hear shouts from the cell block. It’s strange that this man lives so near to the prison — is he the warden, perhaps? But, no, the shouting guards are coming closer, up the stairs, and the panicked look the man gives Keith is not the look of a man who has absolute authority here.

“Fuck,” he says simply, and shoves the papers at Keith. “Hide these. Guard them well. If someone finds them, you must destroy them before they fall into their hands.” The cool facade has slipped away, his voice is laden with raw desperation. Keith takes the papers numbly, with the awful feeling that he has just gotten into a mess far too big for one pirate boy. 

“But — the guards, where do I —”

“I’m sorry about this,” the man says miserably, and before Keith can ask why, he pulls Keith to him and leans down and  _ bites Keith’s shoulder,  _ and  _ something is wrong with his teeth;  _ they feel like jagged glass, much longer and sharper and more numerous than any human’s ought to be. Keith screams, more from the shock than the pain, though it hurts plenty. The man holds him fast for long enough to draw blood and then, when Keith’s bleeding through his already-torn shirt, he shoves Keith and the papers into his wardrobe.

Keith catches a glimpse of his face before he slams the wardrobe doors shut, and has no word for what he sees except  _ monster. _ Half human, half  _ something else,  _ silvery scales spreading over the man’s jaw, teeth wicked and bloodied, eyes glinting with an unnatural inner glow. Keith’s heart beats; he feels his pulse in the bleeding wound, though the cuts are shallow. Not just a monster. He knows what the man is. Why the guards were so frightened of him.

Why they’re frightened of him now, as they burst into the room and see the man wiping his bloodied mouth on his pristine white sleeve, pinning them with a cold glare.

Keith peers through the crack between the wardrobe doors, hardly daring to breathe. The guards stop short. One covers his mouth and retches. The other just stares as Shiro says, “If you’re here for the little pirate prisoner, I have bad news for you.”

The staring guard’s lavender skin flushes with anger and disgust. “You can’t be serious.”

Shiro shrugs. “I was hungry. I liked the look of him.”

The retching guard spits at Shiro’s feet. His sharp teeth are bared, but they’re not nearly as sharp as Shiro’s. “You fucking animal. The Commander’ll hear about this, you know.”

Shiro flinches, but it’s well-disguised fear. “Tell him. He’s not above cruelty, as I’m sure you know. And don’t you think he wants me well-fed?”

The guard makes as if to spit again, but Shiro takes a step forward, and now it’s the guards flinching away. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. I could go for another meal, if provoked.”

_ “Animal,” _ the other guard says again, weakly, and the two scurry out of the room.

The door thuds shut. In the silence, Keith counts his breaths and huddles against the back of the wardrobe. The man’s coats smell like worn leather, the sea, and blood. He swallows. He’s heard the tales, of course, that the Alteans devoured human and Galran flesh alike when they ruled these Isles, but — Keith never thought to believe them. They were just more Empire lies, meant to draw the humans to the Galran side and further doom Altea. Or were they?

The wardrobe doors swing open. Shiro stands there. He’s wiped his mouth clean, but a speck of red still remains on his upper lip. Keith stares at it, dazed. Shiro is holding out a small parcel — Keith’s belongings, he realizes, the meagre ones they stole from him. His coat, his blade, his hat.

“Come on, before they come back,” Shiro sighs, and offers his hand. Keith doesn’t take it, though he snatches back the parcel. He thinks, maybe, he wants to stay in the wardrobe.

“You told them,” Keith ekes out, “that you ate me?”

Shiro eyes him. “Yes. So, they won’t go searching for you —”

“You told them,” Keith repeats, voice rising in pitch, verging on hysterical, “that you fucking —  _ ate me  _ — _ what the  _ — _ ” _

Shiro covers his mouth. Keith doesn’t whimper against his gloved palm, but it’s a near thing. “Quiet,” he says. He sounds tired. “I don’t eat pirate boys,” he adds. “And I don’t plan to eat you. But you must go, and do as I asked. Please.”

He lifts his palm away slowly. Keith gulps. “Who are you?” he whispers.

“Shiro,” Shiro says.

“No,” Keith says, breath hitching, “you’re...you’re the Commander’s Altean, his dragon, one of the ones that got captured, the last of the Alteans, the ones who serve the Galra. Aren’t you?”

This time, his flinch is not so well-disguised. “My name,” he says, “is  _ Shiro.  _ Now  _ go, _ before I push you out the window, boy.”

“Keith,” Keith says, even as he’s being herded to the window by a dragon,  _ the Galra Commander’s dragon; _ surely this is a fever dream he will soon wake from. “My name is Keith.”

Shiro sighs. He opens the window. Below them, a short jump down, is a gently sloping rooftop, leading to the other rooftops in the port town, and to the docks, to a ship, to escape. “Run away, Keith,” he says, softer than Keith ever imagined a dragon could speak, “and never return to this place. Find A…” He falters. “Find Madame Rose. Return to her what was taken.”

Keith wants to ask why an Altean servant of the Empire, a traitor to his people and one of the most vicious creatures in all the world, is saving his life. He wants to ask if Shiro is, in fact, a prisoner here too. But he hears the guards’ footfalls on the stairs again, and a heavier set of boots behind them, and the look of terror in Shiro’s face is enough to convince Keith to jump from the window, clutching the parcel and papers to his chest, and run, and run, and  _ run. _

***

_ FIVE YEARS LATER _

Before the battered mirror, Keith runs his fingers over the old scar of dragon teeth on his shoulder, brow furrowed in thought. It’s been several weeks since Takashi Shirogane, Commander Sendak’s dragon and infamous Champion, has last been seen. 

It was quite the spectacle — half the prison was destroyed, sending the sprawling port city known as the Fang into chaos as the tower exploded with a thousand bolts of lightning. The Altean leapt from his cell into the sky in his terrifying draconic form, just in time for a hurricane to rip through the bleak port city and the surrounding sea that the escaped dragon had sought refuge in. 

Sendak’s ships have been searching relentlessly in the aftermath, and so has Keith’s ship, the  _ Volterra.  _ Most of his crew thinks it’s because of the reward money — not from Sendak, though he’s certainly offering, but from an old friend, one Madame Rose of West Arus. She personally promised Keith a sum that would make him and every crewmember more than happy if he brought Shiro to her, alive and well.

Keith accepted her terms, and though he’ll never say no to gold (as long as it isn’t Empire gold), he isn’t doing this for the reward. He owes Shiro a debt, one he has never forgotten, and the memory of the dragon remains as vivid in his mind as it was five years ago. He’s seen Shiro since then, though always from afar, and never on good terms. Usually, it was in the thick of a vicious naval battle, through a haze of salt-spray and cannon-fire.

Now more than ever, Keith is quite convinced that the things he saw Shiro do were not of his own volition — somehow, Commander Sendak controlled him. Otherwise, it makes no sense that the great silver dragon would send so many ships to a watery grave and destroy so many lives with his lightning. 

Keith knows well enough that most other pirates hate the Alteans, the once-proud people who are now known only as the weapons of the Galra. Or maybe they simply fear them. It isn’t a baseless fear, and yet...there’s something else going on here. Keith doesn’t know Shiro, but he does know that there is an awful disconnect between the man who freed him that day and the monster who sank Captain Olia’s ragtag fleet only a week before his dramatic escape.

Is it possible that he finally got away for good? But, no — Keith isn’t enough of an optimist to truly believe that. Hunk, his first mate, has enough optimism for the two of them. Possibly, Hunk just hopes they won’t ever find Shiro. Keith can’t entirely blame him for that; some might say Keith’s drive to find Shiro is near-pathological. If he flew away and escaped the storm, he has no reason to return to the Isles, right?

Keith narrows his eyes at his reflection. Of that, he’s not so certain. Madame Rose — this is not her real name, Keith is well-aware, though she becomes evasive when he brings this up — seems to care a great deal for Shiro. Either that, or she wants him alive so she can enact some personal vengeance. Keith isn’t certain of this, either. He dislikes uncertainty. 

And yet, there is one thing he’s absolutely certain of. The further they go out to sea, the more vivid his dreams have become. It’s strange; Keith rarely dreams, but these...they’re more like memories. He’s above the ocean, but he’s flying, wind whipping through his hair and stinging his skin...and he always has the feeling, powerful and sure, that he isn’t alone up there. Then he wakes up.

Keith’s cabin door flies open. Standing on the threshold is  _ Volterra’s _ brilliant navigator, Pidge. They fix Keith with a hazel stare and he braces himself, turning ‘round and hastily pulling his shirt closed to hide the scar out of habit. “Yes?” he asks.

Pidge’s jaw works. They look...flustered, to say the least. “We need you at the bow, Captain. You should see this, even though, full disclosure, Hunk told me not to tell you because he seems to think that you’ll get a  _ ridiculous idea _ in your head about how the damn  _ Champion _ is in there, and —”

Keith is already hurrying out of his cabin and down the steps from the stern, squinting in irritation against the bright golden light of dusk as he makes his way across the length of his ship. There’s a strange stillness in activity, and a gathering at the bow. Of course Lance and Rizavi are the ringleaders. Gunners are always trouble. Pidge falls into step beside him, their brow furrowed. “Keith. You should know, I’ve never seen anything like this before, but Hunk says he’s heard stories — I just don’t understand it. The maps, they don’t show this…”

Hunk hurries over to them before they reach the bow, but Keith can already see it in the distance, even as Hunk tries to block his vision with his sheer bulk. “Keith,” he tries, cajoling, “let’s just turn around. Preferably soon. Like, now. Because that, my friend, is _ bad news. _ You hear me? No,  _ no,  _ Keith, Captain,  _ my dearest Captain, _ look at me, not — damn it, Pidge, did you  _ have _ to go and tell him?”

Keith pushes past Hunk to join Lance and Rizavi at the stern. Surprisingly, Surgeon Kinkade is there, too, frowning at the eerie haze of impenetrable white mist which they’re currently sailing lazily towards. Well, nearly impenetrable. Huge, dark crags of rock pierce through the opaque mist like jagged teeth. Keith eyes it. “It seems the Fang has competition,” he murmurs. He gets a dry chuckle from Kinkade. 

Lance and Rizavi finally seem to notice their captain’s presence and both leap away from the bowsprit they’re leaning over. “Oh, shit,” Lance exclaims, “Pidge really went and told you! Damn. Well, maybe there are sirens in there. It looks like a siren-y place, huh?”

“Sirens,” Keith says, “aren’t real.”

Lance huffs. “Far as you know.”

“My sis saw a siren once,” Rizavi pipes up.

“Oh?” Keith doesn’t look away from the mist. It’s like he’s having the dream again, but he’s awake. He doesn’t know how, but he knows it — he — is in there. They’ve found the Champion.

“Yeah. She had red hair and lived in the mysterious sea known as The Golden Cockerel!”

“Nadia!” Lance snaps. “I’m serious, just you see; you won’t be making jokes about brothel girls when we’re all charmed into the ocean deep by beautiful women with fish tails!”

“True,” Keith mutters, “because we’d all be dead.” Lance blanches.

“Nobody is dying!” Hunk reaches the bow and eyes Keith worriedly. “Oh, no. See, you’ve got that glint in your eye, and I don’t like it one bit.”

“What is this place, Hunk?” Keith asks, bracing his hands on the bow and inhaling. Even the air feels, tastes, smells different here. Everything is still — not like the doldrums, which are stale and languid, but taut, tense, as if waiting. 

Hunk wets his lips. “If it’s what I think it is, we should turn around, Keith.”

“We’re not turning around.”

Hunk eyes him, exasperated, but they’ve been through enough together that he finally relents with a sigh and a slow shake of his head. “The only word I know for it is Tuugamau. It means something like...a grave, a final resting place.”

“Ah,” Pidge grumbles, “lovely.”

Hunk folds his arms. “No, it really isn’t. It’s where things go to die, Keith. Alright? If your Champion is in there, then...it’s already too late.”

“No,” Keith murmurs. “No, he’s still alive.”

Hunk, Pidge, and Lance exchange wary looks. “How do you know that?” Lance demands.

“Get us as close as is safe, Pidge, and then we need to set anchor,” Keith says. “I need a rowboat.”

Hunk’s eyes widen. “Keith, come on. You aren’t serious —”

Keith is very serious.

*

Tuugamau is certainly silent as the grave. The only sound is of Keith’s oars cutting through the waves, of which there are very few. The sea is placid here and Keith dislikes it, for it makes no sense. They’re in the middle of the ocean, and no landmasses are marked on Pidge’s maps, which have never failed them before. Keith has a feeling that even if they marked Tuugamau and tried to find it here again, they would fail to do so.

The back of his neck prickles as the dark spires of rock rise up all around him. He can see smashed remnants of ships on their rocky shores, but he’s not looking for a ship. He’s not really looking at all. Keith is guided forward by the pull in his chest, tugging him as if on a long, long rope towards someone he must believe still draws breath.

He almost misses the cave in the mist, but as soon as he sees its dark maw, he knows it’s the right place. He guides the rowboat with surprising ease to the pebbled slope at the cave’s mouth, and makes sure it’s secure before trudging into the quiet gloom. The cave isn’t very big, thankfully, more like a wide, shallow bowl in the earth, and lying at its center is the battered body of a huge silver dragon. 

Keith sucks in a breath, stopping short. He’s seen Shiro like this before, in flashes of lightning from afar, but that doesn’t make it any less shocking to see him up close. The dragon is massive, half the size of the  _ Volterra, _ easily. There’s a reason they’re so good at bringing down even the best of warships. There’s also a reason they’re so hard to bring down, and sure enough, the great silver body rises and falls with ragged, rasping breaths as Keith makes his way down towards it. 

Its pale wings are splayed out in clear exhaustion, marred with a few scorch-marks and tears, and its —  _ his,  _ Keith thinks, though dragons are so inhuman it seems wrong to assign a gender — horned and crested head lolls against the wet rocks, eyes shut. His limbs and neck and tail are adorned with beautiful sail-like crested fans, but these, too, are torn and look almost flimsy at the edges, like tattered lace. 

When Keith is close enough to touch him, one of Shiro’s eyes opens. Each eye must be as large as one of Hunk’s heavy iron soup pots. They’re a cold gray, and Keith thinks this is odd — he seems to remember them being yellow when he saw Shiro in battle.

Shiro’s breath rattles louder, his slitted pupil dilating, darting about, focusing blearily on Keith. He then makes an agonized sound, trying to move away but too tired to move more than a few scrabbles of his claws against the stone. His tail twitches, then falls still.  _ Kill me, then,  _ Shiro says, and Keith startles back. The voice echoes through his head; Shiro’s mouth remains unmoving. _ My scales will make a pretty treasure for you, pirate. _

Keith winces. Shiro doesn’t recognize him. But of course not, it’s been five years, and he’s hardly coherent. Keith’s red cloak and black plumed hat aren’t exactly subtle, either. He wishes he’d ditched the hat.

“I’m not here to kill you,” Keith says, gathering his wits about him and taking a few more steps forward. “I’m getting you out of here, Shiro.” He hesitates, then lays his hand over Shiro’s scarred muzzle. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, probably too cool. “I’m bringing you to a woman named Madame Rose. Do you know her?”

Shiro shudders. His tail thumps against the stone. “Allura,” he rasps aloud, eye falling shut, and Keith freezes.

_ Allura.  _ As in, Princess Allura, the rightful ruler of the Alteans, who the Galra have been searching for since she escaped a century ago...Keith swallows. He feels a little stupid for not seeing it sooner. Madame Rose’s real name must be  _ the Princess Allura, _ and she wants Keith to bring Shiro to her because he...he’s her friend. And her bodyguard, that’s right — Takashi Shirogane is the only surviving member of the old Altean royal guard, as far as Keith knows. And now he’s dying, right in front of Keith. Fuck.

“Shiro,” Keith says, patting his scales, “you must shift back. I have a ship. You will be safe there, and I will take you back to — to Allura, and all will be well, but first you must —”

_ All will be well?  _ Shiro echoes, mocking.  _ All has not been well for a long time. If you won’t put me out of my misery, leave me. _

“I can’t do that,” Keith says. “You really want to die here? After everything you did to escape?”

Shiro’s scaled brow furrows.  _ I must die here, after everything I did before that. _

“Is Allura not still your queen?” Keith demands.

Shiro starts to lift his head with a low growl.  _ Of course she is my queen… _

“Then let her serve justice upon you,” Keith reasons, “as is her right. Come on. Would you be a traitor to Altea even in death?”

Shiro flinches, wings curling in further.  _ You are cruel, pirate, _ he sighs, but with great difficulty, he heaves himself up, the entire cave rumbling with the movement.  _ I am too drained to fly,  _ he admits, bowing his head. Exhaustion is clear in every line of his body. 

“I have a boat,” Keith says. “You can shift, can’t you?”

Shiro blinks at him, impassive, and then a pale, shimmering light fills the cave, the shape of the dragon falling away. When the light fades, the man who saved him years ago is kneeling there. He looks almost the same as he did then, but his hair is now entirely silver, his white uniform is torn and dirtied and burnt, and there is a shadow in his gaze when he looks up at Keith and staggers to his feet. “Lead the way, pirate.”

“Do you need help walking?”

Shiro gives him an icy look and Keith gets the message, but glances over his shoulder every few paces to make sure Shiro is following him at a slow but stubborn limp.

As they reach the rowboat, Shiro seems to notice his surroundings, lips parting as he takes in the jagged crags and numerous shipwrecks. “A graveyard,” he murmurs, dazed. He climbs into the boat with Keith, still looking so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. “Are you Death, come to take me?” Shiro asks, slumping forwards.

“No, I’m just Keith,” Keith sighs, rowing carefully through the languid waters and thick mist. “Are you injured at all?”

Shiro blinks at him, brow furrowing in bewilderment, like he still can’t believe Keith is speaking to him instead of slaying him. He shakes his head slowly. “...No. I don’t think so. Just...fatigued.”

“You must be, to have flown two weeks straight,” Keith remarks. That’s a rough estimate, but Tuugamau isn’t exactly near the Fang. 

Shiro looks dully down at his feet. “I was thrown off-course by the hurricane,” he whispers.

“Off-course? Where did you mean to fly?”

Shiro is quiet. Keith keeps rowing. 

By the time they reach the  _ Volterra _ , Shiro looks barely conscious. Keith’s crew calls down to him, and hoists the boat up, murmurs spreading through the crew at the sight of Shiro. “Is that really him?” Hunk whispers, edging closer. “He looks a little worse for the wear…”

“Worse for the wear?” Lance exclaims. “He looks like he’s been to Hell and back!”

“It’s him, alright,” Pidge declares, pointing to his torn uniform. “He wears Sendak’s emblem.” The crew’s murmuring grows louder. 

“Hunk give me a hand, here,” Keith says, and grunts as his first mate helps him lift the dragon’s limp body out of the rowboat. 

“There’s a cell in the brig with a clean cot,” Hunk says as they haul him across the deck.

Keith stops. “The brig? We can’t put him in the brig.”

All crew members close enough to hear exchange looks. “Why not, Captain?” the boatswain, James, demands. “He’s a prisoner, isn’t he? And what if he tries to shift, or attack someone?” There are murmurs of agreement.

Keith stares James down, and to his credit, the boatswain seems to realize he’s spoken out of turn. “He is  _ not _ our prisoner,” Keith retorts, struggling to keep his voice even, “and he will not be treated as one. I’ll take care of it. He’ll be staying in my cabin, as an honored guest.”

James’ eyes widen hugely and even Hunk looks at Keith askance. “But — but, sir,” James starts.

“That’s the end of it,” Keith says before he can finish that sentence. “Listen. He escaped the Galra. He no longer serves them. I was also given very specific instructions to deliver the Champion in good condition to our contact in West Arus. Now, Griffin, would  _ you  _ be willing to spend two weeks in the brig and emerge in ‘good condition’?”

“No, sir,” James admits. “Sorry, Captain. I was just worried for your safety, is all. Sleeping in such close quarters with a dragon…”

“Thanks,” Keith says dryly, “but I think I can handle myself. Hunk, come on.”

They half-drag Shiro up the steps to Keith’s cabin at the stern, and once they have Shiro securely placed on Keith’s bed, the door shut behind them, Hunk turns to Keith with a serious stare.  _ Uh-oh. _

“Keith,” Hunk says, “you have to see that this is a bad idea.”

Keith folds his arms. “Hunk, I know what I’m doing. He isn’t a threat to us.”

“You  _ say _ that, but he’s killed too many of us to count!” Hunk hisses. “Just — help me to understand why you’re so certain he won’t do the same to us.”

“He saved my life, Hunk,” Keith mutters, “and if not for him, I would never have found this ship. You know that, you were with me on that first job.”

“Yes, but you never explained  _ how _ he saved you,” Hunk says, eyeing Shiro’s limp form.

“He snuck me out of the prison,” Keith replies. “That’s all.”

“And that scar on your shoulder wouldn’t have anything to do with —”

_ “Hunk.” _

Hunk raises an eyebrow. “Keith.”

“I need the crew to trust me on this,” Keith sighs. “I need _ you _ to trust me on this. Besides, look at him. He’s hardly in a condition to fight anyone.”

“Fine,” Hunk relents, reluctance clear in his expression and tone, “but a lot can happen in two weeks at sea. If something changes —”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Keith promises, and clasps his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Sure, Keith.” Hunk casts a last look at Shiro, shakes his head, and leaves them.

Shiro does not stir when Keith rummages through his wardrobe and finds some clothes that might fit. He leaves them on the end of the bed and tells Shiro to change if he’s able. He tells him he’ll bring him dinner later, and leaves the dragon in his cabin, hesitating before locking the door behind him, just in case.

*

At dinner, Keith sits in the mess hall with the others, gratefully digging into Hunk’s signature stew. Not only is he a good first mate and quartermaster, but also a marvelous cook, which is vital for any ship to function properly. Hungry sailors easily become disloyal ones.

Keith tries to tune out the chatter all around him, but it’s near-impossible as a few particular strains of conversation catch his ear. 

_ So, what d’you think about the Cap’n’s treatment of the Champion? _

_ I think it belongs in the brig, but did you see the look in the Captain’s eyes? I thought he’d duel Griffin if he didn’t get his way. _

_ I heard a rumor that they were prisoners together, in the Fang. Maybe the Champion helped him escape? _

_ Why the hell would he do that? _

_ Maybe they were lovers? _

Keith chokes on his stew. Pidge unsympathetically smacks his back.

_ Lovers? But that would’ve been years ago, the Cap’n would’ve been just a boy! _

_ Aye. Maybe that’s why he’s so attached. Boys are easily manipulated by men. _

_ The Cap’n is smart; he wouldn’t have let it come to that. _

_ Maybe he had no choice. Either way, I don’t like it. A human protecting a dragon? It’s downright unnatural. _

Keith sets down his spoon, appetite rapidly disappearing. Lance, on his other side, nudges him. “Don’t let it get to you, Captain. You know they love their gossip, even if there’s not a grain of truth in it.”

Keith grunts. “I wish they’d gossip about something else, then. Lovers.  _ Hah.” _

Lance peers at him. “Were you not? I’m not judging. Too much.”

“Oh, not you too,” Keith snaps. “I was a sixteen year old dock brat beaten within an inch of my life, hardly an appealing catch, and he’s…” He flaps his hand in a way that attempts to convey _ stunningly beautiful and several centuries old, probably. _ “He helped me escape with the deal that I would find that treasure and give something in it to his friend, Madame Rose. That’s _ all.” _

“And now he’s staying in your cabin,” Lance drawls, “where there’s only one bed —”

“Do you want stew all over your shirt?” Keith demands. “Because you’re about two seconds away from stew all over your shirt.”

“Okay, okay!” Lance lifts his hands in surrender. “I was just saying.”

“Stop _ saying, _ then,” Keith mutters, and finishes the rest of his stew in a huff.

*

The rumors don’t stop, and Shiro doesn’t wake in his presence, though when Keith returns to his cabin that night it’s to the sight of Shiro’s torn uniform discarded on the floor, along with the shirt Keith offered. He’s wearing the pants, which seem to be the only thing that fits. Keith resolutely looks away from his scarred, well-defined (to put it lightly) torso, and sets about making himself a cot on the floor.

This continues day after day, and Keith grows more and more irritable and uncertain about his choice, because Shiro remains stubbornly in slumber while Keith is plagued by increasingly vivid dreams. Some are of flying, as usual, but others are — less definable, and decidedly more surreal and...intimate. They’re disorienting, dreams of silken sheets which turn to foaming seas, of warm hands which shift into cool claws, of a hot mouth on his skin that always jolts him into waking. 

The strange thing is that Keith has had his fair share of lustful dreams before, but these...are not quite that. He doesn’t wake up aroused, though he is often clammy with sweat, and swears he still feels the phantom touches linger over his body. The dreams themselves are nothing wicked, nothing wanton, but they build and build upon each other, and Keith can never manage to forget them, not like other dreams which fade over the course of a day, or even just the morning. 

The dreams have a solid, heavy lining to them, a silver thread of impossible reality running through them. They don’t, Keith realizes, really feel like dreams — more like memories, or else prophecies, of a life he has not yet lived, and perhaps never will. 

Each time he wakes from these, breathless and tense, his eyes find Shiro in the darkness, fixing upon his sleeping form with a desperation he cannot fully place. He knows, with unsettling certainty, that these sibylline dreams of his are about Shiro. They’ve all been about Shiro, though rarely does Keith see his face, or hear his voice — yet he simply knows. But  _ why?  _ What within him has latched on so firmly to the dragon, and what is Keith meant to make of any of it?

Maybe this is why the rumors rankle at him with increasing annoyance as the first week at sea tapers to a close, with no land in sight. While it is true that Keith finds Shiro beautiful, and fascinating, and does feel that he owes Shiro a great debt for saving his life and giving him the means to be captain of his own ship, he did _ not  _ look upon the dragon with a hungry eye when they first met. He wants to tell his gossiping crew that it would be more accurate to say that Shiro  _ literally devoured him _ than to say he was figuratively devoured by some passionate love affair between them.

Yet even this knowledge doesn’t bring Keith peace. When they first met, Keith remembers fearing Shiro, yes, but now, with the years between him and Shiro’s teeth in his shoulder, he finds himself less afraid, and instead...curious. Dangerously curious, about how those teeth would feel if they weren’t trying to tear into him. 

In the darkness, from his cot on the floor,  _ every night, _ Keith can see the broad flex of Shiro’s back, knotted with scar tissue and shining a dark gold in the last flickers of lamplight, before Keith extinguishes it. He falls into the habit of giving himself a few long, greedy moments to drink in the sight of Shiro’s flexing back, and even when the cabin plunges into inky shadow, Keith’s eyes strain for the shape of him, watching for the rise and fall of his body with each breath, and taking comfort in that.

It didn’t occur to him that Shiro might be watching him back until one night, when the oil is low and the cabin is bathed in a dusky glow. He’s shedding his shirt from the day, stained by saltwater and sweat as it is, and slipping on another when there’s a sharp inhale, then a rustle of movement from his bed. Keith pauses. He can feel eyes on him.

Slowly, he turns to his bed, where Shiro is staring at him, brow furrowed. He doesn’t look fully awake — still exhausted, and slightly confused, and more than slightly pink and flustered. Keith’s holding his shirt in his hands, and thinks he should probably put it on, but it’s hard to think when Shiro’s looking at him like that...whatever _ that _ is.

Shiro blinks, some clarity entering his bleary eyes, and he makes a low sound of what could be embarrassment before rolling over and curling away. 

Keith opens his mouth. Closes it. “How are you feeling?” he tries, hesitantly.

Shiro curls tighter. “Tired,” he mumbles, barely audible, and Keith hears his breath hitch like he’s about to say something else, but whatever it is, he apparently decides against it. 

In the following silence, Keith clears his throat and shakes his head to himself. “Uh...alright, then. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Shiro whispers, only when the lamp is blown out and they’re both in their respective beds. 

Keith watches the curve of Shiro’s back, more tense than before, and ponders what it means to be sneakily ogled by a dragon. Maybe...maybe most dragons just tend to stare. And blush. And roll away and feign sleep in embarrassment when they’re caught. 

But probably not.

Shiro is conscious in the second week of sailing, though it’s clear that he is still in need of rest after his long journey. He accepts most of the food and drink Keith brings him, and does so quietly, giving him only a soft  _ thank you _ in reply. Keith has to wonder if dragons hibernate, or go into some sort of stasis like reptiles, because Shiro eats and drinks very little and does not seem keen to move from the bed, and any movements he makes at all are reluctant and sluggish. 

As the days pass, however, the sluggishness lessens, and so Keith is not entirely surprised when at last, in the home stretch of their journey, Shiro speaks to him in a voice that is fully lucid and awake. Keith is, again, in the process of changing his shirt, when Shiro clears his throat — this time loud and unmistakable. Like he wants to be heard — wants to be noticed. 

Well, he’s had Keith’s attention from the start. Keith fears that much is very obvious.

Slowly, Keith turns, heart pounding as he does so without fully knowing why. Shiro’s stare is more unblinking than before, less open to interpretation. Keith swallows. He’s gazing steadily at the scar on Keith’s shoulder, the scar his own teeth left there. “You,” Shiro murmurs. “You’re the boy. From the prison.”

“Yes,” Keith agrees. He tugs on his shirt, and is sure he doesn’t imagine the flicker of disappointment in Shiro’s eyes. He’s sure enough that he pauses, then takes a careful step towards the bed. “And you’re the dragon who made me a captain.”

Shiro hums, his expression inquisitive yet guarded as Keith approaches. “I didn’t do that. You were the one who found the scale and returned it to Madame Rose, did you not?”

“Yes.” Keith pauses. “But she’s not really Madame Rose, is she?”

Shiro’s eyes narrow. There is no laxness in his body now, Keith thinks — he is strung tight, taut as a bowstring at the ready. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No.” Shiro’s shoulders slump in unspoken relief and Keith tilts his head. “She was very thankful to have the scale returned, but I still don’t know what it is. And I don’t think you’re going to tell me, either.”

“No,” Shiro agrees. “Some secrets must be kept. But you have my gratitude, for that and for more recent events...Keith, was it?”

Keith blinks. “You remember.”

Shiro nods to his shoulder. “And I remember that, too. How is it that I do not frighten you?”

Keith snorts. “Frighten me? I’m a pirate captain.”

Shiro tilts his head slow and calculating. His nostrils flare and his lips part, and something shifts in the air between them, deepens, darkens. Keith suddenly finds it difficult to breathe evenly, and wonders if he is in danger from Shiro after all, then finds...he doesn’t fear that, either. No — instead, it  _ excites _ him, and that is _ far _ more frightening.

“You’re young,” Shiro retorts, “and human. Tell me,” he suddenly rises from the bed, the sheets falling away from his body, “don’t you want revenge for all those ships I sank, all those lives I took?” The ease with which he rises suggests he has been able to do so for awhile, and has simply been biding his time.

Keith takes a step back at the sight of his bare chest from the front, the side he has not seen so much of,  _ so much more _ rippling muscle overlaid with silver scars. The dragon’s shadow falls heavy over him, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight, waiting. Keith swallows hard.

“I don’t – want revenge,” Keith mutters. “I don’t know what Sendak did to you, but I don’t think you wanted to do any of those things.”

Shiro hums. “Does that matter?”

“Of course it matters,” Keith whispers.

Shiro seems to realize how close they are and sucks in a breath, but as he does so, his eyes darken. 

Yes, Keith thinks dimly, he is in danger. But he’s fixed to the spot — he doesn’t want to flee, self-preservation be damned. 

Shiro takes another breath, inhaling slowly, and smiles, close-lipped. “Well, well,” he drawls, “I sense there’s a reason you kept me in your bed and not the brig, Captain. Not just out of the kindness of your heart, hm?”

Keith stills as the dragon reaches out and wraps his right hand around Keith’s waist, tugging him closer, claws digging in. Shiro inhales deeply, and with acute embarrassment, Keith wonders what  _ exactly  _ he smells. Is this typically how dragons flirt, if that is indeed what they’re doing, here? It’s...very forward. Usually, Keith is the forward one, but this is a little much even for him.

“I...I did not mean to…” Keith’s breath hitches, pulse racing. 

Is he truly entertaining bedding a dragon — or  _ being bedded by _ a dragon, as the flaring heat in Shiro’s eyes seems to promise? Keith’s had his fair share of wild nights, but something tells him a night with Shiro would not be at all like a night with a prostitute, nor a quick fling with a crewmember. The dreams linger in his mind, as do the crew’s gossip, which may not be grounded on complete falsehoods.

After all, Keith isn’t running. In fact, he’s shifting closer.

“It’s alright,” Shiro murmurs, breath hot against his jaw, “many fantasize about my kind, rare and unobtainable as we are...and it has been some time since I bedded a human.” When Shiro smiles, his teeth are sharp, and his eyes are filled with a strange, depthless pain. “And I cannot remember the last time I bedded a human without devouring them afterwards.”

Keith stiffens, and Shiro grabs his jaw and kisses him. There is something frantic in the gesture, in the way he licks hotly into Keith’s mouth, his tongue longer than any human’s; Keith’s knees are already weak at the thought of its potential. Still, Keith is not one to simply tremble and let himself be kissed — or eaten, as the case may be.

Hey, nobody said Keith was a smart man. 

He growls against Shiro’s lips and wraps an arm around Shiro’s neck, dragging him down and making his intentions clear, nails digging into Shiro’s back. The dragon growls in reply, deep and low in his throat, and then there are hands on the backs of Keith’s thighs, lifting him up off the ground. Keith’s yelp tangles with a curse as Shiro half-throws him onto the bed, climbing over him with glowing eyes.

Keith’s chest heaves and he stares up at Shiro, at those wicked teeth and his forked tongue as he licks his lips and drags his gaze down Keith’s body. “I thought you didn’t eat pirate boys,” Keith manages, shuddering as sharp claws unlace his shirt, and Shiro’s other hand slides beneath it, palm stroking slow over his belly. 

Shiro’s lips curl, and his claws scratch through coarse hair. “You’re not a boy anymore,” he points out, and leans down to kiss Keith again, rocking his hips down onto Keith’s thigh. They both groan, and Keith hisses as Shiro teases his nipples through his shirt, foregoing the laces to instead pluck at hardening nubs without mercy. 

“No,” Keith agrees, shoving hard against his chest. Shiro falters, a smidgen of uncertainty in his expression as Keith sits up. “I’m a  _ captain.”  _ He eyes the dragon and yanks his shirt off, tossing it halfway across the cabin and lifting his chin. Again, Shiro’s eyes dart to the scar, and Keith frowns. “What,” he snaps, crawling into Shiro’s lap and sending the dragon tumbling backwards with a grunt, “do you miss the taste of my blood?”

Shiro swallows, hard. Keith shifts in his lap and feels, unmistakably, his rousing cock pressing against Keith’s ass. “It’s not like that,” Shiro says, halting. “I don’t – ever want to do that, again.”

Keith is startled by the agonized honesty in his voice and face. His stomach churns. What had Sendak done to him? “You won’t,” Keith promises, cupping his cheek and letting their bodies press together fully, sharing warmth. “You’re free, now. So what are you going to do with your freedom?”

Shiro’s hands are tight on his hips. “You saved my life,  _ captain.  _ So it only seems fair that I give you my  _ sincere thanks.” _

Keith chuckles, drawing a finger down Shiro’s chest. He’s sweating already, skin shining a glossy gold. “I won’t say no to that, though I’ll remind you that you saved me first.”

Shiro makes a low sound of dissent. “You smelled of murder and fear, in that little cell,” he replies, nosing under Keith’s jaw, fangs scraping along his throat. Keith clings to him, and once more wonders if he’s a fool for allowing a dragon so close, all the while knowing that it’s worth it. “But I didn’t save you. Just prolonged the inevitable.”

Keith makes a face. “Not very good at bedroom talk, are you?”

Shiro winces, and to Keith’s surprise, kisses his neck, continuing down over his collarbones and nudging Keith to sit back against the pillows. “There was not very much... _ talking, _ in my experience.”

Keith’s mouth goes dry. He can only imagine based on the twisted rumors he’s heard of Sendak and the other Galra’s sadistic pasttimes — if Sendak’s influence over Shiro was great enough to make him murder and pillage, it could easily be used for other, more sordid things. Keith imagines a silver dragon chained and salivating before prisoners less fortunate than himself, and shivers, not entirely in disgust — though he’s a little disgusted at himself for the imagining. “Oh.”

“But I will not hurt you,” Shiro whispers, a line between his brows. “Unless – that is what you desire.”

Keith’s toes curl. “Do what you want,” he offers, and delights in the blush that spreads across Shiro’s strange but handsome face. “It sounds as if it’s been a while since you were able to do so.”

“Yes,” Shiro agrees, his voice dropping low and husky as he resumes kissing Keith’s chest, making his way down, down. “Yes, it has.” He unlaces Keith’s pants quickly, and Keith shivers at his claws so close, biting his lip furiously when Shiro takes his cock in hand and leans in to lick at the crown, his tongue curling around the tip with unexpected tenderness. 

“You taste good,” Shiro offers, and chuckles when Keith groans, hips arching off the bed. “I wonder how many times I can make you come,” he muses, and that’s all the warning Keith gets before the dragon swallows his cock whole, sinking down until his lips encircle the base and Keith is swearing and squirming under him, muffling his curses in his fist. Shiro hums around him, hollowing his cheeks in slow, sweet sucks, and Keith is helpless to resist it, eyes rolling back when jagged teeth prick along his swollen length and Shiro’s wicked tongue works over hard flesh relentlessly. 

Shiro’s  _ good _ at this, and it doesn’t take long at all before Keith is gasping and grabbing at his hair, trying to tell him before he gives up entirely and comes thick and hot down the dragon’s throat. Shiro’s satisfied rumble sends him spiraling into another dizzying wave of climax, and when at last the dragon pulls off, licking his lips, Keith is limp and shocked. “Fuck,” he gasps, staring at the ceiling. “Ah – what are you –”

“Shhh,” Shiro coos, and damn his keen nose, because he’s already discovered Keith’s stash of oil under the bed, and emerges triumphant, dipping two of his fingers into the small jar with a smirk. “What I want, right? I want to open you up. Do you want me to?”

Keith blinks rapidly. The dragon’s demeanor is bold and demanding, but just below the surface that uncertainty remains, a desire to please, to not take more than is offered to him. Keith’s fingers curl into the sheets. “Yes,” he breathes. “Fuck, please.”

“Good,” Shiro says simply, and yanks Keith’s pants off fully before pressing his fingers between Keith’s spreading legs, thankfully not the ones with claws. Keith’s mouth falls open, and he feels Shiro watching him, attentively curling his fingers until Keith moans and jolts with the touch, and Shiro repeats it, until Keith is on the verge of begging and his cock is hardening anew, leaking on his belly in a slow dribble with each stroke of Shiro’s fingers within him. Keith pants, squeezing his eyes shut, the intensity in Shiro’s shining eyes almost too much to bear — and they haven’t even fucked yet. He’s doomed.

When Shiro does unlace his own pants and line up his cock, Keith’s eyes fly open, and he moans again at the sight of Shiro kneeling between his legs, guiding his cock to Keith’s hole. He’s thick, and perfectly in proportion, and it figures that a dragon would have a big cock but Keith still cries out when Shiro enters him, stretching him wide. 

Shiro covers his mouth, and Keith pants harshly against his hand. “Quiet,” Shiro hisses, braced over him, the head of his cock still barely inside and already _ so much,  _ “or do you _ want  _ your crew to know you’re being fucked by a monster?”

Keith bites Shiro’s palm, no malice in the gesture, more overwhelmed than anything else. Perhaps Shiro understands this, because his eyes soften and he lifts his hand away, kissing Keith instead, smothering his sounds with his tongue as he feeds his cock in deeper, deeper, until at last his hips are flush with Keith’s ass and Keith is so full he feels hardly able to move. Shiro pulls back, studying Keith’s face. “Do you need me to —”

“Just – give me a moment…” Keith turns his face into the pillow, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. There’s a reason he’s rarely sober for sex, and it’s been — a long time, since he let anyone take him like this, much less while sober. He’s not entirely sure why he’s letting Shiro do it. Unbidden, the dreams drift into his mind again. He doesn’t understand the connection between the two of them, but whatever it is — he can’t escape it. Nor does he think he wants to.

Shiro settles above him, seemingly content to nuzzle into Keith’s neck and wait, at least until Keith’s body decides to tighten around him, and he groans, hips jolting forward in reply. Keith arches and Shiro does it again, claws scraping down his ribs as Keith wraps his legs around Shiro’s waist and rocks with him, Shiro’s cock sliding slickly inside him, bumping against his prostate more often than not simply by its sheer size; it’s hard to avoid. Keith tries and fails to not make embarrassing little sounds, but it’s impossible with his cock rubbing between their bellies and Shiro fucking him with increasing strength, the bed rattling in warning under them. 

“Mmhh – you’re going to break that,” Keith pants, heels digging into Shiro’s back on a particularly powerful thrust. 

“I’m sure you can buy –  _ hah  _ – another, with all your pirate gold,” Shiro retorts, his eyes burning.

Keith laughs breathlessly, tipping his head back. “I think you – seriously underestimate how much pirate gold I have.”

“If you can still say such big words, I’m not doing this right,” Shiro retorts, and hefts him up into his lap, his next thrust hard enough to make Keith forget entirely about the bed. This position is both better and  _ so much worse,  _ because now they’re completely face to face, and there’s nowhere for Keith to hide except in Shiro’s chest, which he valiantly attempts to do. 

Shiro bounces Keith in his lap, on his cock, splitting Keith wide open, and holds Keith to him with shocking gentleness. Keith mouths at Shiro’s shoulder and stays there, hiding his sounds in Shiro’s skin, rolling his hips down into each thrust, the wet slap of his cock between them too-loud in the heated, breathy quiet. 

When Keith reaches down to stroke himself, Shiro fucks him faster, and Keith can’t tell if it’s a punishment or a reward, but he does know that it takes him only seconds to come after that, half-sobbing in the crook of Shiro’s neck, Keith’s cock spurting over his own fist. Shiro yanks Keith’s hips down in a stinging grip, burying his cock deep as he pumps him even fuller. 

Keith twitches, groaning at the sensation and slumping into him, unable to do much more than hang on tight as Shiro rides out his climax with a rhythm verging on violence. Keith knows he’s finished when sharp teeth close around his right shoulder, digging into old scars hard enough to make Keith tense, though they never break skin. Shiro releases him the next moment, his breaths shallow and measured. Keith flops backwards onto the pillows with a wounded sound, Shiro’s cock slipping from his stretched hole with an unwilling tug. 

Keith feels cum drip between his thighs and swears there’s more than he’s used to, or maybe it’s just been so long that he’s forgotten. It’s not a bad feeling, but strange...strange, because in all the times he’s done this, he’s never lost himself to it so entirely, never felt so  _ claimed _ by it. Or maybe claimed isn’t the right word. Connected? Keith doesn’t know. Fragments of images and feeling curl through his thoughts, rushing wind and cool scales beneath him.

Shiro lays down beside him, the uncertainty returned. “So?” he murmurs. “Will it be the brig for me, after all?”

Keith turns his head on the pillow and blinks at him, coming back to himself bit by bit, remembering how to breathe, to speak. “I was never planning on sending you to the brig.”

Shiro’s brow furrows. “And what of your crew?”

“They trust me,” Keith says, and rolls onto his side, staring at the opposite wall. “Even if they do not understand me.”

“Is it you they do not understand, or your interest in me?” Shiro’s voice is soft, not accusatory, but Keith still turns, shoulders hunched defensively. Shiro’s eyes widen. “I did not mean – I am grateful for your interest. It saved my life. But you must admit it is... _ curious.” _

Keith lays back down, bile rising in his throat. The dreams mean something, but apparently only to him. “Yes,” he agrees dully. “To you, I am just the boy from the prison, hm?”

Shiro shifts behind him, and Keith jumps when his hand curls over Keith’s hip and squeezes. “And am I not just the dragon from the prison to you?”

_ “Just _ the dragon,” Keith echoes, and laughs, not without bitterness.

Shiro hums. “I have no illusions of grandeur,” he murmurs. “I was a prisoner, and now I am an escaped prisoner on the run. Altea, and all the true dragons with it, are long gone, long-stolen from us.”

“You looked like a true enough dragon to me.”

“You flatter me, captain. I am — was — little more than a glorified attack dog.” Shiro’s voice is uneven, anger and sorrow simmering just beneath the surface in equal measure.

Keith exhales. “How...how did Sendak control you, force you to do all those things?”

Shiro is quiet. Then he pulls away abruptly. “It doesn’t matter. How long until we reach West Arus?”

“Two days, if the wind is good,” Keith replies, not pressing him, but unable to stop wondering nonetheless. He rises from the bed, and Shiro lifts his head as Keith crosses the room slowly, headed for the washbasin. As Shiro sits up, Keith pauses, washcloth in hand, and nods to the sole of his right foot. “What’s that?”

There’s something etched into Shiro’s skin there, a reddened, inflamed-looking symbol. Keith doesn’t know much of magic, but it looks like it could be a sigil of some sort, though for what, he doesn’t know.

Shiro quickly tucks his foot underneath him. “A scar,” he says.

“It looks fresh.”

Shiro’s eyes narrow. “Observant, aren’t you?” He frowns. “It’s...a protective sigil. To stop Sendak from finding me.”

“That’s good,” Keith offers. “It seems to be working.”

“For now, yes.”

“It isn’t permanent?”

Shiro sighs. “Few things are.”

Keith frowns, but doesn’t pursue the matter further. He gets cleaned up, finds some half-clean clothes, then pauses, uncertain now where the boundary lies between them. Shiro eyes him, then huffs and stands, pointing to the cot on the floor. “I think I should be the one sleeping there, not you, Captain.”

Keith’s frown deepens. “No. It’s fine, I’m used to it —”

“It’s your bed,” Shiro retorts, “and I still don’t know why I’m not in the brig. Let’s compromise.”

Keith sighs, and waves a hand. “Fine. Fine, if you’re sure.”

“I am,” Shiro murmurs, and goes to the floor with a surprising amount of dignity.

*

It is, however, a very awkward night. 

Keith turns out the lamp quickly, and does not waste time staring at the sweet, slow curve of Shiro’s back. He’s finally seen everything he wanted to see, after all.

Right?

*

Shiro emerges from Keith’s cabin only a few times after that, and only when Keith accompanies him, more for the crew’s peace of mind than Keith’s. Apparently, though, this isn’t mollifying everyone, because Hunk greets Keith after dinner the next day with, “So, was it worth it?”

Keith gives him a look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Hunk demands. “Because it sounded like you did last night, Keith.”

Keith’s eyes narrow, and he glances to and fro. “How loud was I?” he hisses.

“Not that loud,” Hunk amends, “but that’s not the point, Keith. The point is —”

“That he’s a dangerous monster used as a weapon of the Empire and I should hate him?” Keith scowls. “That’s a bad point.”

“I’m not saying you should hate him,” Hunk says, pained, “but maybe don’t _ fuck him,  _ Keith, come  _ on.” _

“Keep your voice down,” Keith pleads.

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Oh, that’s rich.”

Keith glares. “Just – we’re almost to West Arus, alright? One more day, Hunk, and this will be over, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

Hunk heaves a sigh. “I always have to worry about you,” he says, but drops the point.

*

Unfortunately, “almost to West Arus” does not translate to “out of the woods.” 

The  _ Volterra _ finds this out when a ship rises out of the foggy night, cannons at the ready, Sendak’s emblem snapping in the howling wind on a violet flag. Keith stares out his window from the stern and swears colorfully. “So much for a peaceful last night at sea,” he grumbles, grabbing for his coat, belt, and pistol. From the cot, Shiro rises, and turns to look at Keith, face as pale as it was when Keith found him. 

“The sigil – didn’t work. He found me,” Shiro whispers, his voice faint, fragile as a cobweb, snapping when he repeats it,  _ “He found me,”  _ and stumbles upright as the ship jerks sharply to the left, sending them both off-balance. 

“Shiro, hey, it’s going to be alright,” Keith starts, but when he tries to reach out, Shiro shoves him away with his right hand, claws slashing across Keith’s chest. If he weren’t wearing his thick coat, he’s sure they would have split skin. Keith swallows, staring at him in the dim light of the flickering oil lantern. “Shiro?” His voice sounds small, he thinks, childlike. 

Shiro turns to him and his eyes are yellow, glowing. He bares his teeth in a fanged snarl and makes for the door. Keith leaps after him, but Shiro is too fast, too desperate, beating him to it and throwing the door open before staggering up the creaking stairs. Keith follows him out onto the deck, which is slick and dark in the driving rain. 

The crew pours from belowdecks in a chaotic crowd, everyone running to carry out their assigned tasks, but lightning splits the black sky and illuminates Shiro standing in the middle of it, illuminates the silver scales spreading along his scarred flesh, the lengthening of his jaw, and the leathery wings bursting from his shoulders. Someone screams. Keith keeps running, skidding on the wet wood, and he’s within reach when Shiro turns to him, eyes burning brighter, more infernal than before, and says, _ Take the scale from him,  _ in a voice warped beyond recognition.

Then he jumps off the side of the ship. 

Keith cries out, running to the balustrade, but it’s too late. There’s nothing left of Shiro in the churning waves but a faint imprint of foam, and then — then the sea begins to boil.

Keith’s eyes widen in horror. “Pidge!” he shouts over the storm, over the shouts of his crew, “get us starboard! There’s about to be a dragon under us!”

“There’s also about to be holes in our bloody ship!” Lance yells, grabbing Rizavi and several others to return belowdecks. “Man the cannons!”

Sure enough, Sendak’s ship is readying to fire; Keith can see the glow from the ship’s gunports. It’s a galleon, a big one, bigger than their frigate. But they do have a lot of guns, and Lance is a good shot. Keith knows he should be giving more orders, but the deck is chaos, and he’s reeling from the look in Shiro’s eyes, the despair, the frustration, the fury. And his words — the scale? What damned scale? Why save those words for his last ones?

Keith reels back again when the silver dragon bursts from the waves. If Pidge hadn’t been quicker, their entire port side would have been splintered by the force from which that powerful body surfaces, saltwater sloughing from his glittering scales, great wings churning up the waves further as Shiro struggles to take flight, at last gaining momentum and leaping for the bow of Sendak’s ship. He does so with a strange care, so as not to damage the ship, and Keith’s heart sinks as he looks upon the silver dragon crouched like a predatory cat the size of a barge, spiked tail lashing and fiery eyes glaring upon them as his toothed jaws open. 

“Take cover!” Keith shouts, diving behind a stack of barrels as violet light crackles in the dragon’s maw, like gunpowder in the cannon-mouths. “We’re about to get hit!”

The _ Volterra’s _ cannons fire a volley at the same moment that Shiro unleashes his lightning upon them. It’s awful. It’s the worst thing Keith’s ever felt, and he’s felt some awful shit. Every inch of his body is aflame, spine ramrod straight from the pain, and though the strike only lasts an instant, when it fades he’s stunned, shaking, numb, his hair singed down to his eyelashes. 

The afterimage of the brilliant violet light remains plastered across his hazy vision. Keith stumbles out of cover and finds the deck a mess of smoking, heaving bodies, some crawling towards shelter, the water damning them all as it crackles with remnants of the dragon’s electric breath. Thankfully, Keith doesn’t see any dead, but it’s a small mercy — those who get caught in the current will be overwhelmed by the pain eventually.

From Sendak’s ship, Shiro lets out a roar and leaps into the sky, wheeling above them as Sendak’s ship fires on them. Keith’s gratified to see there’s plenty of damage done by the  _ Volterra’s _ canons, but he figures it’s about even when the cannonballs hit — the lightning has charred some of the wood, rendering the deck’s structure unsound. They’re weakened. They should flee.

Keith grits his teeth.  _ Take the scale from him. _ Shiro wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t important. A matter of life and death, even. 

He runs to the helm, where Pidge is gripping the wheel tight, their knuckles white and slightly burnt. “Captain,” Pidge says, voice grim, “we aren’t made for this kind of fight. I won’t have control much longer.”

“I know,” Keith agrees. “Which is why I need you to get us close enough for me to board, and then get the hell away.”

Pidge’s brow furrows. “You outta your damn mind, Keith? Why would I —”

“That’s an order, Pidge,” Keith snaps. “Please. Just a little closer, before the next cannon volley.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” they mutter, and yank the helm portside. 

The crew all turn towards them, bewildered and betrayed, but Keith can’t explain himself. There may be hell to pay for this later — pirate captains are elected by popular vote, after all — but right now, he can’t think of later. He makes for the mainmast, climbing the hanging shrouds of rigging, their barnacled edges cutting into his palms, but he hardly feels it. 

The ship lurches sickeningly to the left again, ever closer to Sendak’s, and Keith can see the Galran cannons aglow again. Overhead, Shiro’s circles are growing tighter, closer. Keith tears his gaze away from the dragon and heaves himself up into the crow’s nest, wiping saltwater from his eyes and reaching for the coiled rope beside him, deftly tying it fast to the mainmast. 

He tugs the rope once, twice, to test it, grabs hold of it tightly, braces himself, and swings from the crow’s nest, across the treacherous divide between galleon and frigate, sailing over the snarling sea and straight towards enemy rigging. 

Keith’s raw hands slip for but a second on the rope before he’s over the deck and in a dizzying sweep, he lets go, tumbling through the air from the cut rope and onto the deck, standing amidst the shocked Galrans with his trusty blade in one hand, pistol in the other. At least he has the element of surprise. 

He scans the crowd for a familiar face, and finds it at the helm — Sendak stands beside his navigator, staring intently up at the sky, and if Keith wasn’t looking for it, he wouldn’t have seen it, but — there, clutched in Sendak’s hand, is a small shining pendant. It’s shaped like a scale. 

Keith is going to steal it if it’s the last thing he does.

If you asked him, he wouldn’t be able to explain the all-consuming drive to capture the scale that possesses him as he cuts through the Galran crew like butter, his movements wicked fast, a whirling dervish of death across the deck. He wouldn’t be able to say how it was that his pistol never missed and his blade always swung true. 

But that’s exactly what happens, and it happens so fast that Sendak never sees him coming — Keith wrenches his blade from a Galran’s throat in a spatter of gore, swings himself up onto the rigging, grabs another getaway rope, and drops onto Sendak like a stone. 

A shot rings out, but Keith has no care for it — nothing else matters but the scale, because as he knocks Sendak to the deck and rips the pendant from Sendak’s grasp, its fine chain snapping from its place around Sendak’s neck, the drive that fueled Keith ignites within his veins, and with dizzying certainty he swears he holds something in his palm that no treasure could hold a candle to.

Sendak surges up under him, making a grab for Keith, but Keith is already running for the edge of the ship, rope in one hand and scale in the other, leaping from the side of the ship and back to the  _ Volterra  _ yet knowing he’s never going to bridge the gap. True to Keith’s orders, Pidge has steered the  _ Volterra  _ off to safety. The dark waves will meet him when he lets go, but there’s nowhere else to go. He has to get the scale away from Sendak, no matter the cost. Keith clutches the scale tighter, closes his eyes, and releases the rope.

What happens next is impossible, incredible, indescribable. 

Keith never hits the water. Instead, he lands on solid scales, and when he opens his eyes, it’s Shiro under him, swooping in before the sea could claim him. The scale is warm, pulsing, glowing,  _ alive _ in Keith’s grip. “Shiro,” he breathes, folding forward against the serpentine neck in sheer relief, too exhilarated to question this too much just yet. “Take us back,” he gasps, clinging to slippery silver scales, though Shiro’s back is so broad that three Keiths could easily fit atop it. 

Shiro immediately surges forward towards the retreating  _ Volterra, _ but behind them, Sendak is still following. Keith glances back with a frown. “Aren’t you going to deal with them, or…?”

Just as swiftly as he turned towards the  _ Volterra,  _ Shiro banks sharply to the left, turning back to face Sendak’s ship, wings flapping in powerful gusts of wind to keep him aloft as he hovers in midair with herculean effort. Then he opens his jaws, and Keith feels from beneath him a rippling energy, a growing storm, before lightning pours from Shiro’s throat and bathes the enemy ship’s deck in death. 

Keith lets out a victorious whoop at the sight, but Shiro is silent beneath him, still flapping, still hovering, staring at the burning Galran ship. Keith’s excitement fades to uncertainty. “Shiro?” he asks, patting Shiro’s shoulder though he doesn’t even know if the dragon can feel it. “We need to get back to the _ Volterra _ —”

It’s like a switch flips. As soon as Keith says it, Shiro turns back and resumes his previous course, flying straight for the  _ Volterra. _ “Gently,” Keith gasps, uncertainty twisting into apprehension as the masts of the frigate approach rapidly, “Shiro, careful —!”

Shiro swoops aside at the last moment and lands light as a feather on the bowsprit. He lowers his body for Keith to clamber off, and finds his crew staring, frozen and bewildered.

“It’s alright!” Keith calls to them, lifting his hands. “Sendak won’t be following us anywhere —”

“Um, Keith?” Hunk croaks, pointing with a shaky finger behind him.

Keith turns, and sees Shiro shifting, falling to his knees in a position of utter defeat on the deck. Keith hurries to his side, but Shiro’s head jerks up, and his eyes — gray again — shine with the unmistakable light of betrayal. 

“You,” Shiro whispers. He raises his voice, and his body, trembling with the effort. “You weren’t supposed to be able to —  _ you’re Galra.” _

Keith stares at him, bewildered, as his crew begins to murmur in shared shock and confusion behind him. “I’m not,” he starts, “Shiro, look at me, I’m human —”

Shiro spits on the deck at his feet, chest heaving, and when he stands it is with stiff, cold fury. Keith takes a step back. “No human,” he whispers, “could use _ that.”  _ He points to the scale in Keith’s hand. “Humans don’t ride dragons,” Shiro snarls, loud enough for the rest of the crew to hear, “humans don’t do what you just did to me.”

Keith turns to look back at them, and is horrified to see doubt gathering in more than a few faces. He whirls back to Shiro. “I — I don’t understand. What did I use? How —”

“You ordered me, and I obeyed,” Shiro says, voice flat as his glaring eyes. “Just like Sendak did.”

Hunk steps forward, putting a firm hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith is nothing like Sendak. If anyone is in the wrong here, it’s you. Keith, he almost destroyed the  _ Volterra.” _

Shiro’s eyes flicker with pain. “That wasn’t — Sendak, he —”

“How do we know he won’t do it again?” Lance exclaims, arms folded. 

Shiro’s face twists in an awful, bitter smile. “Because he can stop me,” he snaps. “Go on, Keith. Try it.” Without warning, he leaps for Hunk, clawed hand lifted and teeth bared, and Keith knows he won’t be fast enough to stop Shiro — and as soon as he thinks it, Shiro freezes in place as if held fast, his fingers flexing and eyes narrowing, but unable to touch Hunk. Something else happens, too: Shiro’s gray eyes flash yellow.

The scale is burning hot in Keith’s hand. He stares at Shiro. “What…”

Hunk backs away, breathing shallowly. “...Keith? Is he doing that, or is that you?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whispers, “I — Shiro,  _ stop  _ —”

Shiro settles back into his previous stance, his mouth a thin line. “You see?” he says. His eyes dart to the crew members, as anxious as he is angry. “Only Galran blood can control Alteans.”

“That’s enough,” Pidge snaps, “Keith isn’t part of the damn Galra. Captain, I think it’s time we finally put him in the brig.”

“Or toss him overboard,” James mutters, his face ashen as he looks at both Keith and Shiro. The look in his eyes is not one Keith likes, but he’ll face those consequences later. For now, he needs to know what Shiro is on about, and whatever it is, it’s not something he’s going to say in front of the crew.

“Hunk, help me get him to the brig, then,” Keith says, his voice only a little uneven. Shiro glares daggers at them both, but doesn’t resist, and his defiance flags with each step. By the time they’re belowdecks and in the bowels of the ship, which are flooded with an inch or so of water from the cannonfire, Shiro is pliant and silent. 

Keith hesitates, looking at the miserable conditions, the seawater sloshing along in the cell, bitterly cold and smelling of brine, but Hunk shakes his head. Keith knows he’s right – the crew wouldn’t stand for him keeping Shiro in his cabin now, and besides, they have less than a day until they reach West Arus. 

He’s got to make some concessions, especially after Shiro’s recent declaration about him. It isn’t true, of course — it can’t be. Galra? Keith? It’s almost laughable. His dad was human, and his mom...well, she died giving birth to him. Keith has never had reason to doubt that. Until now, anyway.

They get Shiro into the cell, but Keith lingers by the bars, giving Hunk a look. Hunk shakes his head again, but Keith waits stubbornly, and finally Hunk heaves a sigh, shakes his head with somehow more exasperation than before, and leaves them in the dark brig together.

Shiro doesn’t lift his head. “What do you want from me?” 

Keith kneels down outside the cell. “Shiro, I don’t know what you think I did to you, but — I got the scale. Like you asked.” He lifts up the scale, and this time Shiro does look up, and the agony on his face is heartbreaking. 

“Yes,” Shiro rasps, “you did. And you took it for yourself. I didn’t think you’d be able to use my Heartscale. No humans can.”

“Heartscale,” Keith repeats, opening his fist and peering at the scale-shaped pendant. It’s silver, he realizes — the exact same shade as Shiro’s scales. Iridescence ripples across its smooth, curved face like sunshine on shallow seas.

Shiro looks like he’s about to be sick. “Yes. Every Altean has one. It’s our...our link between forms. If it’s destroyed, we become trapped in one form or the other. If it’s stolen, we become trapped by the thief.”

“But only if they’re Galra?” Keith shakes his head and sticks his hand through the bars, offering the scale to Shiro. “Listen. I don’t want it, Shiro; it’s yours — right? Didn’t you want it back?”

Shiro leans against the wet wood and sighs. “You can’t just  _ give it back, _ Keith,” he murmurs.  _ “You _ are my new Heartscale Master. You took it from Sendak, my previous Master, and the scale accepted you, so you’re bound to that and my will is bound to you...unless you give it to another of Galran blood and it accepts them.”

“But they would hurt you,” Keith says, “like Sendak…”

Shiro’s mouth twitches. “Oh, and I suppose you won’t?”

Keith flinches. “You think I would?”

Shiro’s expression is grim. “When people are given absolute power over someone else, they abuse it.”

“I don’t  _ want  _ absolute power over anyone!” Keith snaps, and throws the scale into the cell. “Just take it!”

The scale sinks in the thin film of water and Shiro leans forward as if in a trance, picking it up slowly between thumb and forefinger. He holds it out to Keith. “You can’t give it back,” he says again. 

“Looks like I just did.”

Shiro swallows. He looks even more ill than before, and Keith’s heart pangs with worry. “No,” he mutters. “We’re...connected, now. You have to keep the scale on your person, or the absence will hurt us both. Don’t you feel it, already?”

Keith starts to shake his head, but even as he does so, a wave of nausea overtakes him, and he grasps at the bars with a disbelieving groan.  _ “No _ — Shiro, I didn’t mean to —”

“Take it back, already,” Shiro mutters, and Keith does, and hates that as soon as the scale is in his palm again, the nausea fades away as quickly as it had come. 

The two of them stare at each other for a few moments, then Keith says, “You really think I’m Galra.”

“You must be,” Shiro retorts. “At least partly. I’ve only heard of full-blooded Galra becoming Heartscale Masters, but...there’s a first for everything.” He doesn’t sound thrilled about that.

Keith blinks down at the scale. “Are these...are Heartscales how the Galra conquered Altea so quickly? And how they control the Alteans...” He falters, eyes widening. “The scale you first sent me to find and take back to Madame Rose — to Allura. That was her Heartscale. Wasn’t it?”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that out.”

Keith’s heart pounds. “But, then — I didn’t accidentally become  _ her _ Heartscale Master too, did I?”

“No, it would appear not,” Shiro mutters. “I don’t understand fully how the bond works, either, it’s...there are many stories, but many were lost. All I know is that some say Fate determines who will hold our Heartscale, and that among our own kind, that holding was _ not  _ what the Galra have warped it to become.”

“What was it, originally?” Keith asks, but Shiro is silent, his eyes wary. Wary, Keith realizes, because he thinks Keith will order him to answer. Keith exhales. Slowly, he tucks the scale into his pocket, the one that isn’t full of holes, and he looks back at the dragon with a frown. “Maybe I can’t give it back,” he says, “but I’m not like Sendak. You can do whatever you want. We’ll be in West Arus by morning, and we’re taking you to Allura, and we don’t have to see each other ever again. I won’t use it against you, Shiro. I won’t use it at all.”

“But you already have,” Shiro reminds him. “You were the one who made me destroy Sendak’s ship —”

_ “I didn’t know!” _ Keith hisses, and the dragon flinches back. He clears his throat and steadies his tone. “Sorry. But I didn’t, or I never would have...I won’t. Ever again. I promise, Shiro.”

Shiro just sighs, clearly unconvinced. Keith doesn’t think he can say anything that will make Shiro believe him — and truthfully, he can’t blame Shiro for that.

Keith rises, and gives him a tired wave. “I know it’s terrible down here, but...I hope you can get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Shiro grunts, turning away from him, curled into a limp ball against the bars.  _ Take the scale from him.  _ He thought he was giving Keith the key to his freedom, and instead, he ended up in yet another prison. 

Keith shivers, drawing his coat tighter around himself. He needs a drink. 


	2. Chapter 2

West Arus is a lively port city, the unofficial human capital of the Isles, and its cautiously neutral status within the Empire’s colonies affords it a different atmosphere and crop of people than most other ports in the Isles. The vessels anchored in the harbor are a motley crew to say the least — and the most notable thing about them is the absence of Empire warships. They aren’t allowed in neutral waters, thankfully. Empire soldiers aren’t welcome here, and they know it.

The city’s mere existence is a bit of a mystery. There’s much talk of wealthy patrons, perhaps merchants who wanted to create their own safe haven, and considering that pirates did exactly that with the island of Olkarion, Keith believes that tale easily enough. 

The  _ Volterra _ will return to Olkarion for a much-needed rest after this job is done, but it isn’t over yet. Keith is ever-conscious of each passerby and every glance upon them as he walks with Shiro through the crowded streets. Keith left Hunk aboard the ship — he doesn’t trust the tension brewing belowdecks, and has faith Hunk can calm the storm before it breaks. If it breaks. Maybe he’s just being paranoid. Or maybe there’s mutiny on the horizon. Better safe than sorry, anyway.

The Lioness is nestled in a decent part of town, where the streets are cobbled and the storefronts are cheery, with hand-painted window displays and clean dogs and cats lounging on steps and street corners, along with the occasional brightly feathered parrot. Shiro looks at it all with apparent awe, his eyes hungry and wondering as he blinks at a passing carriage pulled by two dappled drafts, their harnesses adorned with white plumes. There are humans laughing and jostling each other inside, all wearing the latest gaudy fashions. 

Shiro tilts his head. “Why is it that humans prefer such flamboyant attire?”

“Why is it that Galra prefer such boring attire?” Keith retorts, all at once aware of his crimson coat and knee-high black boots. At least he left the hat behind, this time.

Shiro hums, like he’s really considering it. “They dislike vanity and excess,” he replies. “Ironically.”

“It seems like having their own castles could be defined as vain and excessive,” Keith ventures.

Shiro’s mouth quirks, though his tone remains cool. “Seems like it could be.”

Keith hesitates. “What about Altean fashion? What’s that like?”

Shiro blinks, clearly more startled by the question than offended. “It was...elegant,” he says after a while. “Lots of embroidery, sometimes a little metalwork.” He swallows. “The long, flowing cloaks that Galran nobles wear — they took that style from us.”

Keith isn’t surprised. The Empire likes to take things. He frowns. “What was their original use?”

Shiro clears his throat. “They, uh — they were marriage cloaks. They look like wings, when you spread out your arms…” He trails off.

“Huh.” Keith wants to ask what Altean marriage ceremonies were like, too, but he holds his tongue. Shiro’s expression is still guarded, and Keith doesn’t want to push him too much.

When they arrive at The Lioness, it’s late afternoon, and the early supper crowd is already beginning to trickle in through the welcoming doors. It’s a two-story building, red-brick with wide windows, from which the lights and sounds and smells of the tavern within spill out onto the street. Shiro stops short, staring up at it. 

“Keep walking,” Keith mutters, aiming for confident even though his knees feel shaky as he remembers exactly whom they’re meeting with. The Altean princess. Queen. Hell, Keith doesn’t know how royalty works. He’s met with her before, for she hired him for many jobs after their initial meeting, but this is different. This isn’t just another job: it’s a reunion.

She was so shocked and relieved when he turned up on her doorstep five years ago, holding that strange pink scale. Keith hadn’t understood why then, nor had he understood why she nearly wept when he told her Shiro had sent him. Now, it feels as if it’s all come full-circle. Keith starts towards the door and Shiro follows after a long pause, glancing about uncertainly as they step into the bustling main room.

Madame Rose — Allura — is impossible to miss, darting from table to table in ruffled pink and blue, her moonlight hair tied back in an elegant braided bun. The customers greet her with smiles and coins and stories, and she accepts them all with a brilliant smile of her own. Looking at her now, Keith doesn’t know how he ever mistook her for anything but royalty.

Shiro stops short, nearly stumbling into Keith at the sight of her. His expression is one of anguished relief, so raw and vulnerable that Keith has to look away, and when he does, he sees Allura has frozen also, her sea-blue eyes fixed on them in disbelief before her face crumples in a mirror of Shiro’s. Keith watches as she struggles to compose herself, briskly making her farewells to the nearest table before hurrying over to them. 

As soon as they’re within reach, Shiro and Allura grasp each other’s hands, subtle in the crowded room, but so tightly their knuckles both turn white, as if they will both be ripped away from one another all over again. “You made it,” Allura whispers, her eyes darting to Keith, filled with such gratitude that guilt churns in his belly all the more. “Come, there are hot meals and warm beds waiting for you in the back.”

She leads them through the tavern and back through the kitchens, and from there up a short stairway to a quieter space with a small table and rooms off down the narrow hall. There’s a man sitting at the table with a bowl of stew and an impressive ginger mustache, and as soon as he sees Shiro, he leaps to his feet, eyes wide. “Well, I’ll be!” he exclaims. “My boy, you really did it! I knew we’d see you again, I bloody well knew it! Swore it on my scaffaroons, I did!”

“Coran,” Shiro stammers, stepping forward uncertainly, “you — I thought you were killed —”

“Aye, they came damn near to it!” Coran agrees, and taps the eyepatch over his left eye. “But we’re a tough lot, and you’re toughest of them all! Oh, come here, Takashi, it’s been so bloody long.” 

Shiro stumbles into his arms and hugs him tightly, and Allura waits beside them, her brows drawn together and lips curving in a wavering smile. As soon as he pulls away from Coran, Shiro falls to his knee before Allura, head bowed. Keith lingers in the doorway uncertainly, and Coran waves him over with a beaming grin, but Keith cannot help feeling like a trespasser here. 

Allura makes a soft sound, laying her hand upon Shiro’s silver hair and stroking it softly. “I’m so glad you’ve returned,” she whispers. “So many nights I prayed for your safety, your freedom, and now — at last, a loyal friend has brought you back to us.” Her gaze lifts to Keith, and Keith sees Shiro stiffen under her touch. She sees it too, and frowns. “You may rise, Shiro — of course you may. There’s no need for pretense here. We’re all in the same quandary now, are we not?” 

“Forgive me,” Shiro whispers, still averting his gaze as he rises. “It...is hard to let old habits die.”

“Do not let them die, simply change,” Allura replies. “Keith. It is good to see you, too. I must admit, I had some trepidation over giving you such a mission, but I should have known that if anyone were capable of it, it would be you.”

“Thank you,” Keith manages, and clears his throat. “I – I should really get back to my ship, so—”

Coran scoffs. “You wouldn’t be so rude as to take the coin and run, would you? Pah, pirates. Stay for some supper at least, will you? I promise you, I make a mean turnip stew.”

“I don’t want to intrude —”

“You are _ not  _ intruding, Keith,” Allura assures him, waving him over. “Come. Sit. I suspect you may have a question or two — and I must say I’m eager to hear if you and Shiro have any wild tales for me.”

Shiro frowns, and Keith nervously goes to sit beside him. The table is very small. Coran serves them bowls of stew, and it does smell very good, and tastes even better, but Keith is too anxious to have much of an appetite. Shiro’s Heartscale is heavy as an anchor in his pocket, and he fears the moment that Shiro tells them the truth of what Keith is, what he has done. It doesn’t help that Allura keeps smiling and heaping praise as the two of them stumble through the story of Shiro’s escape and recovery. 

When they finally reach the attack by Sendak’s ship, Shiro hesitates, hunching his shoulders and quietly eating stew for a long while. Allura looks to Keith, and then to Shiro, the first hint of apprehension flickering across her face. “Shiro?” she murmurs. “Sendak found you, and...did you retrieve it?” She glances at Keith again, brow furrowing. Shiro looks pained, and he stares into his stew.

Keith can’t hold it in any longer. “I took his Heartscale from Sendak,” he says.

Coran stares at him and Allura straightens, a dangerous glint entering her eye. She looks to Shiro. “You  _ told _ him?”

Shiro makes a low, miserable sound. “Allura, I — he —”

“I took his Heartscale and became the new — master, whatever it is, I didn’t want to be —  _ don’t  _ want to be, but Shiro said it can’t be reversed!” Keith babbles, then covers his mouth to stop himself from saying another awful word. 

Allura turns ashen. “You did not say you were of Galran blood.” Her voice is deceptively calm. She’s furious, he thinks, and Keith is afraid. 

But Shiro says, “He didn’t know, Allura,” and glances at Keith, sighing and shaking his head. “He had no idea. Nor did I, clearly, or I wouldn’t have asked him to steal it.”

Coran is still staring. “Pretty tiny for a Galra, eh?”

Keith flushes. “I swear I didn’t know,” he echoes. “I’m sorry. And if there’s any way I  _ can  _ reverse it —”

“Shiro spoke true; there is none,” Allura retorts, though her fury has faded into something more thoughtful. “Where is it; his Heartscale?”

Keith’s flush deepens as he fishes it out of his pocket, fumbling, and sets it down carefully on the table. “Here. I’m sorry, I didn’t know where else to keep it.”

“You will need some kind of chain, to wear it as a pendant, as is customary,” Allura muses. “Hm. This is an unexpected turn of events. You know, then, who I am, and how the Galra controlled us, and what the precious thing you first returned to me is?”

“Yes,” Keith whispers. “I know. But Shiro didn’t mean to tell me, it was all an accident, and no one else knows —” He does not want to recount the scene on the deck of the _ Volterra. _ Hopefully, the crew were too confused and shaken to make much sense of what they’d seen.

“It was no accident.” Allura leans forward, eyes bright and intense. “Our Heartscales choose no one by accident. Such bonds run deep — yours must have, considering you are not fully Galra. Tell me, Keith — have you had any strange dreams, lately?”

Keith’s eyes widen. Shiro turns to him, bewildered, and he swallows. “Strange how?”

“Dreams about Shiro,” Allura replies. “About Alteans. For some, they manifest as dreams of flight...”

Keith bites his lip as Shiro’s eyes narrow at him. “Yes, I had those dreams,” he admits. “They got more and more vivid the closer I got to finding Shiro.”

“And you, Shiro?” Allura asks softly. 

“I’ve had no dreams,” Shiro mutters, and Keith’s heart sinks. He picks at his stew. “Sendak claimed he had dreams too, at the start of it all.” He grimaces. “But mine were only ever nightmares.”

“I know this isn’t what you hoped for, Shiro,” Allura murmurs. “It wasn’t what any of us hoped for, but...we must make the most of it.”

Shiro nods, but without feeling. “Thank you for the stew, but I...if I could lie down?”

“Of course,” Allura says, and nods to Coran, who rises with Shiro to help him clear his bowl and get him settled in one of the rooms. Keith is left at the table with Allura, still staring into his stew, but aware he can’t hide from her piercing stare.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Keith says as soon as Shiro is out of earshot. Allura blinks. “I know Sendak hurt him, used him — and I don’t want that. He saved me. I just wanted to help save him, too.”

Allura’s lips part and she leans back as she considers him. “How much did Shiro tell you of the Heartscales?”

“That they’re a way the Galra control Alteans, how they invaded so quickly, and stopped all of the rebellions —”

“Yes,” she interrupts, “but they were not originally that.”

“He would not tell me what they were supposed to be,” Keith mumbles.

Allura purses her lips. “Understandably...though I think you should know. We do not know each other very well, but I know enough of your character and your reputation to say that I believe you to be a good man, Keith...Galra though you may be.” She clears her throat. “Heartscales were originally intended to be shared between mates. Mated pairs would exchange their Heartscales, and from that bond grew all other bonds. The Galra have corrupted that, but…” She gazes keenly upon Keith. “I would hope that some vestiges of its original intent still remain.”

“Mates,” Keith repeats faintly. “But, then — were Shiro and Sendak —”

She makes a sound low in her throat, and Keith realizes it’s a growl, and remembers that she, too, can transform into a great creature of scales and flame. “No,” Allura snaps. “Mates have mutual love and trust — certainly, they did not have that. You are right to say Sendak harmed and used him. It is no wonder Shiro is angry and mourning that he was unable to escape fully — that is how he sees it.” 

Allura sighs. “But, as I said...the bond is not inherently cruel and controlling. There must be balance, trust and will on both sides. The bond becomes so warped under Galran masters because Alteans are unwilling. But if both were willing and their goals were in accord…” She peers at Keith. “Such a bond requires patience, at the very least.”

“He doesn’t want a bond with me,” Keith says quietly, picking up the scale again and shifting it in his palm, his little, moonlike reflection staring back at him in the shining silver. “I told him I would never use it. I will keep it close to me, as he said I must, but I will never compel him with it.”

“There may come a time when you have need of such a power,” Allura murmurs. “What then?”

“He isn’t a djinn I can call upon to do my bidding,” Keith replies. “He’s a person who ought to have a life outside of a tower.”

“Yes,” Allura agrees, “but he is also a very lonely and lost person after so many years spent in that tower.”

Keith is quiet. He doesn’t know what she’s trying to get at, here. “I really should return to my ship.”

To his dismay, she shakes her head. “No, no. Stay the night, I’ll have a bed made up for you. Don’t look at me like that, I need to give you a chain for Shiro’s Heartscale before you go. I won’t have you carrying it around in a waterlogged pocket.”

“It’s not waterlogged,” Keith protests, but he knows the battle’s already been lost.

*

Keith is staring at the ceiling of the tavern room with a small frown in anticipation of the aching head he’ll have in the morning after this sleepless night when the door creaks open.

Keith’s gaze slowly slides to it as his hand slides for his blade, tucked beneath his pillow out of habit. Glowing golden eyes blink slowly at him, and Keith recognizes the dark silhouette as Shiro’s when he murmurs, “I wouldn’t recommend trying to kill me. I think that was Sendak’s least favorite part of the Heartscale bond — to kill me would mean unimaginable suffering for him, a slow wasting away. According to the stories, anyway.” He tilts his head.

Keith sits up. “I have no plans to kill you. Or to be like Sendak in any way.”

“What a relief.” Shiro’s voice drips with sarcasm, but there’s a hesitation to it, an uncertainty. He takes another step into the room, the door thudding shut behind him.

“Are you planning on killing me?” Keith asks quietly.

Shiro sucks in a breath. “No. That would have the same effect on me as it would on you...or at least it would be very unpleasant.”

“And that’s the only thing holding you back?” Keith’s voice is very small; they both hear it.

Shiro’s shoulders slump, a subtle but sudden movement in the shadowed room. “...No. I wouldn’t...I told you I don’t want to hurt anyone, anymore.”

“And you won’t,” Keith whispers. “I wouldn’t make you do that, Shiro.” He’s silent, and Keith frowns. “I made a promise to you, and I know you don’t believe me, but I keep my promises. And I don’t forget that you saved my life — don’t argue, because you did. I would not repay that by bending you to my will.”

“I want to believe you,” Shiro whispers back after several long beats. “I do, Keith. But...trust is dangerous.”

“It is,” Keith agrees easily. Shiro blinks at him. “Why did you come here?” Keith asks, though he thinks he knows already.

“To say goodbye,” Shiro replies. “If what you say is true, if you’ll keep your promise, then I don’t expect we’ll see much of each other after you and the  _ Volterra  _ leave tomorrow.”

Keith’s gut twists, even though it’s true. “I suppose not. Well, here we are, saying goodbye. Is that all?”

“You know it isn’t,” Shiro huffs, and crosses the room, leaning over the bed to take Keith’s face in his hands and kiss him, hard. Keith makes a muffled sound against his mouth but it’s not exactly surprise — more like disbelief. Still, he finds himself tugging Shiro down to the bed with him, and Shiro goes with a sharp nip to Keith’s lower lip, coming down hard atop him. With the dragon’s weight crushing him to the creaking bed, Keith thinks of the dangers of trust and pauses, all at once aware of Shiro’s clawed hand pinning one of his wrists into the pillows, of the sharp teeth grazing his tongue.

Shiro feels him falter and pulls back, eyes narrowing. “You smell aroused but you’re looking at me like I’m an executioner. Which is it?”

Keith swallows, and Shiro pulls back further, clearly confused by his demeanor. Keith wonders about how long Shiro has been alone, isolated, locked away in his many years as Sendak’s Champion. How many people, if any, has he interacted with as an equal, as simply another person? How many of those people truly cared about him?

“I know you don’t trust me,” Keith whispers, “but I trust you, Shiro.”

Shiro’s eyes widen. “What? Why would you —”

“I trust you,” Keith repeats. “In my coat pocket, there’s a length of rope, and you can use my cravat as a blindfold or gag, whatever you’d prefer to put on me.”

Shiro opens his mouth, closes it. “Why do you keep rope in your pocket?”

“I’m a pirate, Shiro.”

“Pirate captain,” Shiro corrects, and frowns. “I — I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do,” Keith says patiently, though his heart thuds hard against his ribcage. “I trust you. Tie me up and do what you want to me. It seems fair.”

“Is this some kind of trick?” Shiro demands, looking panicky, now, though his eyes keep darting to Keith’s coat hanging on the bedpost. 

“No,” Keith says, pouring every ounce of honesty he has into the word. “It isn’t. I wouldn’t do that.”

“You’re serious,” Shiro mutters. “Gods, you’re a fool.”

“Maybe.” Keith wets his lips and leans back against the pillows, pliant. He waits.

For a second, Keith thinks Shiro might leap up and flee the room, so profound is the uncertainty in his eye. But then he slowly leans forward, reaching for Keith’s coat pockets, peering at him all the while as if afraid Keith will lunge and attack the moment he lets his gaze stray away. Keith does nothing of the sort, but stays still and silent, even as Shiro, with the rope and cravat in hand, shoves at his shoulder and pushes him onto his front. Keith, face half-buried in the pillow, wonders if he’s made a terrible misstep. 

All such thoughts fly out the window when sharp claws dig into his lower back and inch his linen shirt upwards, bunching it up just below his nipples. Keith gulps, breaths coming faster as claws then work at his waistband, drawing down his trousers without care of scraping his skin as they go, leaving long stinging lines over his ass and the backs of his thighs. Keith squeezes his eyes shut when both of the dragon’s hands palm over his ass and spread it, the air cold on his exposed hole. 

Then his arms are roughly grasped, tied tight behind his back, perhaps too tight, for his wrists feel at once numb, the rope chafing where his sleeves ride up, and Keith grunts, tugging at the bonds to loosen them enough that he won’t be in danger of losing his damn hands. Shiro isn’t as practiced at tying knots, apparently, but Keith’s certainly not going anywhere, and has no warning before his cravat is shoved into his mouth, tied firmly at the nape of his neck. Keith groans around the damp silk, and for a moment Shiro hovers over him, brow low. 

“Surely you don’t really mean this,” Shiro tries one last time. “If this was some test, and you’re only going to order me away now, then…”

Keith shakes his head and makes a muffled sound of protest before letting himself sink back down against the bed, trying to let the inviting arch of his body speak for itself. Shiro growls softly, in obvious frustration. “You make it very difficult to loathe you,” he grumbles, and scratches lightly over Keith’s hips, up and over his ribs. “Impossible, maybe.”

Keith isn’t sure if he means to say that last bit aloud, and whimpers into the gag as Shiro shuffles down on the bed, dragging sharp kisses down Keith’s spine, each one edged in fangs. With any luck, there will be marks all over him after this — from the rope, claws, teeth, tongue — long after Shiro is gone. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter as Shiro exhales hot over his hole. 

“You let any sailor who wants to have his way with you?” Shiro mutters, the words unexpected, heat rippling through Keith’s body alongside the shame. His cock hardens, trapped in his still laced-up pants and pressing to the mattress, and he struggles not to rub off against it. “Let them tie you up like this and fuck you however they like?”

Keith whines softly, face burning. He doesn’t. He doesn’t let fucking _ anyone _ do this, and truth be told, he doesn’t know  _ why _ he’s letting Shiro do this, but — the answer comes swiftly to him, simply. It’s because it’s  _ Shiro. _ Even the dragon’s name makes him shiver with a sweet, giddy wash of pleasure. And it makes no sense, except that it must be the bond, the bond Keith hardly understands, the bond that Shiro doesn’t seem to feel at all. Or maybe he does, and that’s the only reason why he isn’t ripping Keith apart right now. 

His words sure feel like blades, though, calculated and not quite unwanted, like his teeth as they drag over the curve of Keith’s ass and pause before sinking into the meat of it, a sudden bloom of pain and acute heat. Keith gasps and jerks against it, his cock leaking and smearing wetly, the friction on the crown near unbearable. Shiro doesn’t seem to be in the mood for mercy, however.

When Shiro stops biting him, he doesn’t pull away, but instead licks in long, slow laps of his tongue, his growing, slithering forked tongue, oh,  _ fuck. _ Keith thinks he might be bleeding — only pinpricks, but even the thought of it is enough to make a sick part of him squirm with something that is decidedly _ not  _ disgust. He only squirms more and more as Shiro’s licking delves back over his spine. He’s spread wide again and then that’s Shiro’s tongue on his hole, only for a second — then it’s inside, stuffing him wide in a sudden, slick shove that leaves Keith moaning and arching helplessly back into it. 

It doesn’t feel like a human doing it, that’s undeniable. It’s also undeniable that Keith loves it. 

Claws bite into his hips and thighs, wrenching him ever backwards towards Shiro’s greedy mouth, and Keith welcomes it. Hell, if he’s being honest, Shiro could shift right here and he wouldn’t care. He would still be hot for it, for him. Keith whimpers louder at the realization, high and frantic, and the noise makes Shiro pause, squeezing his waist tight enough to bruise and pulling back. His tongue makes a wet, sloppy sound as it slips out, and something drips over Keith’s thighs and he realizes — Shiro is drooling, and it makes his cock twitch desperately. This — Keith doesn’t know  _ what _ this is, but it’s good. He knows that much.

“You  _ like _ this,” Shiro snarls, sharp and hot right next to his ear, and Keith jumps, eyes flying open, breath shallowing at the unexpected proximity. He thinks Shiro might bite him again, but the dragon’s voice is softer, different, when he adds, “I don’t know why it feels so good to touch you. It shouldn’t, but — mm.” He brushes Keith’s hair away from his neck and Keith tenses, but Shiro only kisses the skin there, and when his body drapes heavy over Keith’s, it isn’t crushing, just resting. 

Shiro takes his time, until at last the lazy roll of his hips against Keith’s ass, the nudge of his clothed cock at Keith’s wet hole, all becomes too much, and he draws his cock out only to rub the head over Keith’s rim, teasing and wicked. Keith swallows back moans and curses, his bound arms flexing uselessly, the rope holding him fast. He wants to beg; if he had words he would. Keith  _ never _ begs, but for Shiro, he thinks he would plead for anything if it meant Shiro would just touch him the way he is now as he finally, finally lets his cock sink in up to the hilt. 

He doesn’t move hard nor fast, as he did before, but ruts into Keith with unhurried, unsatisfying thrusts that leave Keith shuddering and mewling for more, making sounds he would normally never let leave his lips, but this isn’t normal. Keith is overwhelmed, claimed and bound in both senses of the word, and at the thought a delirious little giggle leaves him, stifled by the gag. 

Shiro lifts his head and rumbles against him, cock heavy and full inside him, stretching him so wide but doing little more than filling him — it’s as intoxicating as it is infuriating. “Are you  _ laughing?” _ Shiro mutters, confused, and then draws back, his cock slipping out an inch or so. At the loss, Keith lets out a shaky gasp, a plea for him to stay. Clawed fingers brush over his cheeks, Shiro eyes wide as he leans close and Keith blinks blearily up at him. “You — you’re crying.  _ Oh. _ Keith, I —”

Keith feels Shiro’s cock soften slightly, and hisses in protest, hole tightening around him, trying to keep him  _ right fucking there. _ Shiro makes a low, startled sound, then one much less startled and far more knowing, shifting into a growl as he shifts forward until his cock is sheathed fully again and Keith is panting for it, eyes watering anew, or maybe they really are tears, dribbling down his cheeks. It’s never been like this before. Sex shouldn’t be like this, and it’s barely even sex — Shiro’s hardly fucking him, just rocking slow and heavy over him, but each press of their bodies together is an ecstasy Keith doesn’t have a name for. 

His cock is harder than he can ever remember it being, and no one has touched him; all Keith has is the rough chafe of his pants and the pressure between his belly and the mattress but that’s enough, it seems, for him to come, writhing and shocked and noisy despite the gag.

Shiro swears, his hips hitching a little faster, in steady, deepening thrusts as Keith’s tears soak the pillow and his cock soaks the sheets, twitching and trapped in a puddle of his own come. It’s — undignified, to say the least, but Keith doesn’t actually care. He can focus only on Shiro’s stuttering breaths above him, his claws digging into Keith’s sides as he forces Keith up to meet each thrust, using him the way Keith invited him to, and spills at last in a hot, messy rush. 

He doesn’t pull out right away and Keith is glad for it, limp and shaking as he is, struggling to return to some semblance of full awareness and control of his limbs. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think he’s going to get there any time soon.

When something leathery brushes against his cheek, he’s at first bewildered, but as his eyes open, he sees the silvery wings arching over them, dragon wings, surrounding them in a strange and lovely canopy. Keith sighs, the last shreds of tension leaving him, and Shiro hums, nuzzling at his jaw. “Much as I would like to,” Shiro murmurs, “we cannot lie here forever.”

Keith grumbles behind the gag and Shiro huffs before untying it. Keith’s jaw is sore, and he takes a moment to remember how to use his tongue before slurring out, “We could.”

Shiro eyes him. “No,” he finally says, and Keith doesn’t expect his body to go rigid at the rejection, but that’s what happens. Shiro’s brow furrows, feeling it, and he frowns. “I didn’t mean —” He frowns deeper, because that _ is  _ what he meant. They both know they’ll be parting ways tomorrow morning. Shiro blinks at him. “Do you...do you want a bath?”

It’s such an unexpected question that Keith can only blink stupidly at him. “Hh...huh?”

“Bath,” Shiro repeats, firmer this time, and slides off of him with a grunt. He tugs at the knots binding Keith’s arms, and when they come free his muscles ache unpleasantly. Keith bites back a whimper, but Shiro hears it, and there’s no mockery in his voice when his fingertips trace the jut of Keith’s hip and he says, “Come on. It’s...I want to help. It will ease the soreness.”

Keith tries and fails to sit up, face red, his arms too shaky to help him much, but wordlessly Shiro helps him up. His wings remain, and Keith can’t help but look at them. They’re smaller in this form, but still large, and Keith wonders if they could support him in flight like this. 

“Do they frighten you?” Shiro asks as they stumble out of bed, making their way over to the small attached bathing chamber. 

Keith shakes his head, dazed. “They’re beautiful,” he whispers.

Shiro blushes; Keith is sure he does. “Hah,” he mutters. “That’s a new one.”

“They are,” Keith insists, frowning at him. “Like — like moonlight, or starlight, maybe.”

Shiro is definitely blushing. He ducks his head. “Alteans don’t — silver is a common color. It isn’t anything special. Not like Allura’s pink, or Coran’s orange —”

“I’m not Altean,” Keith says, and reaches out, his fingers curling around one arched wingtip. Shiro’s wings shiver in surprise, and Keith snatches his hand back, clearing his throat. Shiro says nothing, just guides him over to the tub and lets it fill, the running water filling the growing silence between them.

Keith swallows and stares at the dark water. “Did...did you...was there…” He stops, throat dry.

Shiro peers at him. “What?”

Keith exhales, trying once more to gather his thoughts and himself. “Did you have a lover — a, a mate, before...everything?”

Shiro draws away from him at once and Keith knows he’s made a mistake. He has to catch himself on the edge of the tub to avoid falling as his knees give out from under him, but then Shiro is there, a steadying hand on his shoulder, and he doesn’t look angry. “I didn’t have a mate,” Shiro says, slowly, helping him back upright. “Why?”

“I…” Keith chews his lip. “I was just wondering. If you lost them.”

Shiro shakes his head. “Not a mate. But there were so many others, lost.”

Keith’s shoulders slump. He really is a fool, and he has no idea what he’s doing, here. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Shiro cuts himself off. “It’s not your fault,” he finishes, quietly. 

When the tub is full, Keith tries to undress fully, and finds his hands once again betraying him, clumsy fingers snagging on his laces and sore shoulders unable to lift his shirt up and off. Shiro clicks his tongue and then his hands are there instead, and Keith stands stiff and awkward, especially when Shiro reaches his pants and finds the cloth and skin beneath the laces sticky and soaked. Shiro sucks in a breath. “Wow,” he mumbles.

Keith grunts at him as he steps into the bath and sinks down until the water is up to his chin. He has nothing to say in his defense. 

Thankfully, Shiro doesn’t try to rouse him again — not because Keith doesn’t want that, but because he’s so tired he fears sleeping well past noon tomorrow. Hunk will judge him, and Keith will deserve it. He stares at the ceiling, expecting Shiro to leave, but he lingers. Keith’s gaze slides to him, uncertain.

“Did I hurt you?” Shiro whispers. It is painfully earnest. In the shadows, his eyes are caught somewhere between golden glow and silver sheen. 

“No,” Keith breathes. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“I did.” Keith swallows. “I had a feeling.”

Shiro’s face twists. “You really do feel the bond, then.”

“And you really don’t?”

Shiro shakes his head. “I don’t — I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to feel it.”

Shiro turns away slightly, looking instead out the window, at the warm city lights below. “Maybe not,” he admits. 

Keith pretends that doesn’t sting as much as it does. Shiro has every right to feel that way — but he makes Keith feel so many ways he’s never known before. “What will you do?” he whispers. “Now that you’re...out.”

Shiro hesitates, and Keith understands why, yet again the bitterness and sorrow coils tighter. Why would he tell Keith his plans for the future, when Keith is the one person who could use that knowledge against him? 

But then Shiro says, “Honestly? I have no clue.” He laughs, short and sad. “I spent so long thinking of escaping that I never really had time to figure out what to do after that.” He leans against the wall. “I mean...you found me half-dead with no drive to continue. If you hadn’t been there…”

“You could fight the Galra,” Keith suggests, and Shiro lets out a sharp, disbelieving bark of laughter. “I’m serious,” Keith says, frowning. “You could. If you wanted.”

“Of course I _ want _ to,” Shiro snorts, “but that’s...it would be madness, Keith.”

“It would be justice,” Keith retorts. “Wouldn’t it?”

Shiro sighs, and draws a hand over his brow. “Maybe I’m tired of fighting.”

Keith studies him, there in the dark, the arch of his silver wings weary. “Tired of fighting, or tired of fighting alone?”

Shiro turns away instead of answering, and Keith knows he’s lost him. “I’ll...leave you to it,” Shiro says, crossing the room with halting steps, wingtips dragging along after him. He pauses at the door. “Goodnight, Keith.”

_ Goodbye,  _ is what he really means, so it’s what Keith says, and if Shiro’s face crumples, Keith can tell himself it’s just the dark playing tricks on him.

*

When Keith wakes, it’s well past noon, and the noise of the tavern below is what jolts him out of hazy dreams. He tries to piece together the shapes of them, the soft cadence of Shiro’s voice and the smooth cool brush of silver scales on skin, but comes up short, and climbs out of bed with a sigh. 

Shiro is already gone, off to the market, according to Allura. Keith didn’t exactly expect to have another goodbye, but the reality of it is more disappointing than the imagining. Allura sends him off with gold for his crew and Shiro’s Heartscale on a glittering silver chain. Keith hides it beneath his cravat, which still smells of Shiro. Keith isn’t even sure why he knows what Shiro smells like. 

Hunk does judge him when he returns to the ship, and the other crew members must have their suspicions too, but they don’t voice any dissent after Keith distributes their pay among them. Allura kept her promises — there’s more than enough gold to go around. But as the  _ Volterra _ leaves West Arus’s harbor, Keith looks back at the vibrant city’s busy shores and finds he is not thinking of gold at all.

Hunk sits beside him at the stern. “Everyone thinks you fucked him last night.”

Keith’s shoulders hunch. He doesn’t bother answering; he knows the truth is written clearly across his face, and Hunk’s always been good at reading him. And bluntly honest, when Keith needs to hear it.

“But it wasn’t just that,” Hunk adds, gentler. “Was it?”

Keith swallows. He resists the urge to touch the scale, tucked below his shirt. “I don’t know what it was,” he admits. “But I don’t think we’re going to see each other again.”

“No?” Hunk frowns, chin in hand. “Hm. Sometimes I think the world has a way of bringing the people back together who need to be.”

Keith eyes him. “Do you think we need to be together?”

Hunk shrugs. “I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been set on anything, much less anyone, as firmly as you were set on finding him.”

“He was worth a lot of gold,” Keith retorts.

“We’ve done jobs for more gold, Keith.”

Keith is quiet. Hunk is right. Of course he is. He sighs, all the breath leaving him at once in a slow, defeated rush. “Yeah. We have.” He pauses. “Do  _ you _ believe what he said, Hunk? That I’m Galra?”

Hunk tilts his head. “If you’re asking me, kinda sounds like you might be.”

Keith snorts. “Yeah. Guess so. Guess I might be.”

“You didn’t know your mother, right?” Hunk asks.

“No. I thought she was dead. My father always said…” Keith trails off. “But I understand why he wouldn’t have told me, if she wasn’t human.”

“It’s pretty taboo,” Hunk agrees, but he doesn’t sound upset about it. “So...you gonna try to find her?”

Keith glances up in surprise. “You think I should?”

Hunk shrugs. “Why not? From what you’ve said about your Da, she must be a pretty interesting Galra. He hated the Empire, didn’t he?”

Keith nods. “Never said so in so many words, but...yeah. Wasn’t fond of ‘em.”

“So maybe your mother is a rebel,” Hunk suggests.

Keith blinks at him incredulously. “There are no Galran rebel groups.”

“We don’t know that,” Hunk replies slyly. “You know as well as I do that there are plenty of rebel attacks with no apparent source. The Empire always blames it on pirates when supplies go missing or ships are sabotaged, but...who knows?”

“Hmm.”

“Did your Da tell you anything about her?” Hunk presses. “A name, maybe?”

“No name,” Keith murmurs, “but...my blade. He always said it belonged to her.”

Their gazes drift down to the blade Keith always keeps at his side, sheathed, the hilt wrapped tight. Keith takes it slowly from its sheath and lifts it to the moonlight, unwinding the wrapping and revealing the glowing violet symbol on the polished, dark metal hilt. Keith’s always disregarded the symbol before, thought that maybe it was a trophy from a felled enemy, if it had any connection to the Galra at all. Looking at it now...that connection is undeniable. Hunk sucks in a breath. “Well, that’s a start,” he mutters. “Sure  _ looks _ Galran to me.”

“I’m worried about the crew,” Keith whispers, hastily rewrapping it, and glancing behind them, where the crew drifts across the deck, carrying out their daily duties. “Do they believe I’m Galra?”

“They believe you can give them gold,” Hunk says firmly, “and that you haven’t led us astray so far. I think that’s good enough for them.”

Keith frowns. “What about Griffin? He was ready to toss Shiro overboard.”

“Most of the crew was,” Hunk sighs. “That lightning fucking hurt, Keith. But…” He folds his arms. “It  _ was  _ something else to see you riding a dragon. If anything, I think they’re intimidated by you.”

“Me?” Keith plucks at a loose thread on his coat. “Huh.”

_ “I’m _ not, though,” Hunk adds, smirking. “You’re the same old fool you’ve always been.” He slings an arm around Keith’s shoulders, and Keith lets himself slump into his friend’s side, leaning against him. Hunk makes a strangled sound. “Shit, Keith, your neck looks like it got attacked by lampreys.”

Keith grumbles and elbows him. “It’s not  _ that _ bad, shuddup.” But he’s smiling.

*

The pirate haven of Olkarion is about two weeks by ship from West Arus, nestled in an archipelago so inaccessible to the Empire’s Navy that it’s survived a century undetected, although the Empire certainly knows it’s somewhere out there. They would need a damn armada to even have a hope of taking it, anyway — Olkarion is well-guarded, a mess of dense jungles and dark mangroves, and it’s proven to be the perfect hiding place for the Isles’ most wanted sailors. 

The  _ Volterra _ docks alongside dozens of other vessels, some which Keith recognizes, others which look new...or newly stolen. He and his crew disembark with a general air of victory about them — not all ships are so lucky as theirs, and everyone begins to drift off their separate ways to find things to spend their newfound coin on. 

Keith goes with Hunk, Lance, and Pidge to their usual haunt, a tavern among the mangroves which is reliably quiet and welcoming. Keith drinks his whiskey slowly, eyes narrowing at a pair seated in the far corner. He nudges Pidge — Lance and Hunk are engaged in a passionate debate about whether or not sharks are fish — and jerks his head subtly towards the two strangers. “Weren’t they part of our crew...part of the new hires?”

Pidge nods, knocking back their ale and frowning. “Yeah, think so...the gal’s Nyma, and the other one’s...R, something. Why?”

“Didn’t they say they used to work for some rebel group?” Keith mutters.

“Aren’t we all rebel groups?” Pidge retorts, eyebrow lifting. “What’re you thinking, huh?”

“Don’t know.” Keith sighs. “What d’you say we stay in Olkarion a little longer than usual, this time?”

Pidge shrugs. “I mean, doubt the rest of the crew would complain. They’ll be drinking and whoring for weeks to come, if you let ‘em.” They eye Keith curiously. “Something tells me you aren’t planning on doing that, though. Going back to West Arus, hm?”

Keith coughs. “What? No. Why — nevermind.”

Pidge snorts. “You aren’t slick, Captain.”

Keith rolls his eyes at them. “I’m not going back to West Arus. That job is done.”

“Is it?”

Keith throws up his hands. “So much for loyalty. I’m surrounded by traitors.”

“Nah,” Pidge drawls, “just friends who ain’t afraid to tell you the truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I’ve never seen you so attached to someone so quickly before.” Pidge pauses and takes a long sip. “And I don’t know if I believe in magic, but what happened with Sendak’s ship, with you and the Champion...it was strange.”

“Magic is one word for it,” Keith mutters. 

“So, if you’re not going back to West Arus…?”

“I have some...personal business to look into,” Keith hedges. “And I think those two might be able to help me.”

Pidge studies him. “Well,” they finally say, “just don’t do anything stupid.”

“Who’s stupid?” Lance interrupts, swaying into their space, color high in his cheeks and tankard empty. Hunk is a mess of guffaws at his barstool, and Keith and Pidge exchange weary looks.

“That’s my cue,” Keith mutters, polishing off his whiskey and rising. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Pidge waves a hand. “Sure, sure.”

Keith makes his way to the table in the corner, where the two are now watching him with interest. They’re rough around the edges as any pirate, but Keith wonders at their origin — their attire is nothing like any he’s seen around the Isles. The woman, Nyma, has heavily pierced ears and bright eyes smeared with violet kohl, while the man’s arms are heavily inked up to his collarbones, pale shock of lank hair half-covered by a loose-tied bandana. They both eye Keith with lazy interest, a few empty mugs of ale before them.

“Captain,” the man drawls, leaning back in his chair. “Somethin’ we can do for you?”

“Maybe.” Keith gestures to the free chair. “May I sit?”

Nyma chuckles. “So polite. Go ahead; we’re not expecting company.” Her voice lilts with an accent Keith can’t place. 

Keith sits. “So,” he starts. “I seem to remember the two of you mentioning you once worked among rebel groups…”

The man’s lips part. “Ah. So it’s about  _ that.”  _ He eyes Nyma, who shrugs. “Those days are long past us, Captain, but if it’s information you’re wanting, maybe we can help.”

“For a price?” Keith guesses.

“Obviously.” Nyma cracks her knuckles. “So. Which rebel group are you looking for?”

“I don’t have a name,” Keith says, and takes an old piece of parchment and charcoal from his pocket. “Just this symbol.” He sketches out the symbol engraved on his mother’s supposed blade, and watches their eyes widen. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“How’d you come by that?” the man demands. “That’s, uh…” He clears his throat.

“Rolo, it’s been ages since we’ve seen that one, hasn’t it?” Nyma murmurs.

The man, Rolo, frowns. “Yeah. Sure has. Listen, Captain, what d’you want with them?”

“Who are ‘they?’”

“Not a name we can say here,” Nyma warns. 

“Where, then?”

Rolo is looking at him in a new way, eyes wide and wondering, and Keith doesn’t like the sudden scrutiny. “Hmm...give us a week, eh, and we’ll meet you with everything we can find on them down in Sunset Cove, you know the place?”

Keith certainly knows it. It’s secluded, on the other side of the island. But...if they really do have answers for him...he finds himself nodding. “Yes. Alright. A week, then.”

Nyma grins. Rolo doesn’t stop staring at him, even when he returns to the bar.

*

It’s the longest week of Keith’s life, but eventually the time comes for him to meet them at Sunset Cove. He’s no idiot; he told Hunk where he was going, and Hunk told him those two were bad news, and Keith told him they might be the only chance he has at finding his mother and figuring out for himself what, exactly, he is. 

Hunk let him go with a frown — they both know Keith can take care of himself, and Keith can’t fault Hunk for worrying, but...mostly, he’s just giddy with excitement as he picks his way down the narrow cliffside path to the beach below.

Nyma and Rolo are waiting for him, Nyma with a parchment scroll in hand. Keith makes certain his blade is within reach, out of habit, and approaches them. “So?” he calls. “Any luck?”

“Aye,” Rolo agrees as he comes closer. “The group you’re looking for is called the Blade of Marmora.” He and Nyma exchange looks. “They’re the only Galran rebel group known to exist. Few folks can say they’ve ever seen ‘em.”

“And what about you folks?” Keith nods to the scroll. “That for me?”

Nyma smiles. “Oh, this? Don’t worry about this. See, the Blades...well.” She shifts her weight, hand on her hip. “Any Blade captured alive is worth their weight in gold, Captain.”

Keith falters, eyes narrowing. “I’m not one of these Blades,” he retorts. “Why would I be asking about them if I were?”

Rolo chuckles. “No, you may not be a Blade, but you’re the son of one of their leaders — Krolia. The Empire always suspected she had a son, but damn, you hid in plain sight for long enough.”

“One would have hoped that a child of Krolia would have more wits about them than you,” Nyma sighs, and in the corners of his vision Keith sees the shadows creeping from both sides of the cove, and there, slinking out from around the high cliffs, a ship — bigger than the  _ Volterra _ , a galleon with an unmarked flag. Keith stares at it, then back at the grinning pair. Bounty hunters.

“You’re mistaken,” Keith says, shaking his head, “my mother is dead —”

“A likely story,” Rolo laughs. “Captain, you’re her spitting image.”

“Lucky that dragon showed up, throwing around accusations of you being Galra, or I wouldn’t have guessed,” Nyma admits, “but now...there’s no mistaking it.”

“Where are they?” Keith demands, growing desperate as the shadows closing in grow more and more numerous. “Where are the Blades of Marmora?”

Nyma and Rolo shrug. “Last I heard, somewhere far north,” Rolo offers. “But I wouldn’t ask those questions if I were you, Captain. You’re going straight south, to New Daibazaal. Say hello to Lady Honerva for us, hm?”

Keith snarls, drawing his blade and pistol, and the beach erupts into chaos.

*

Hunk finds himself unable to sleep that night, and when the first of the gunshots ring out, distant but unmistakable, he jolts out of his hazy stupor of ale and exhaustion, peering out the window of the humble dwelling he calls home. “Damn it, Keith,” he groans, reaching for his pistol and hurrying out the door, gathering Pidge and Lance from their nearby homes. Both are disgruntled and half-awake, but then another round of gunshots split through the night air, and all are on alert.

“Hell did he do this time?” Lance exclaims as they run through the jungle brush, narrowly avoiding several impressive spider webs. Ugh, Hunk does not miss all the creepy crawlies out on Olkarion nights. 

“Wait, does this have anything to do with Nyma and what’s-his-face?” Pidge pants.

“It has everything to do with them,” Hunk snaps. “Keith met them in Sunset Cove and from the sound of it, walked straight into an ambush.”

“He went alone?!” Lance squawks.

“You know Keith,” Hunk sighs. “Lone wolf, and all that.”

“If he dies for this, I’m gonna kill him,” Pidge vows, and Hunk doesn’t doubt it. 

They crest the hill to Sunset Cove and find a scene of slaughter before them, but that’s not what makes Hunk’s heart sink. The galleon anchored in the cove does that all on its own — there’s no flag flying from its masts, but he knows a bounty hunting vessel when he sees one.

“Oh, Keith,” Hunk whispers, pistol lowering as he watches the rowboat leave the body-strewn beach, the shadow of Keith’s limp form barely visible within it. Nyma and Rolo are rowing, along with several other boats flanking them — they must have sent at least a dozen soldiers. Why? For Keith? 

Lance levels his rifle at the boat, but Hunk stills his hand, shaking his head. “They’re out of range,” he mutters. “They’d only be alerted to our position.”

“So we just let them take him?” Lance snaps. “Hunk, if those are really bounty hunters —”

“Then they’ll drag him to some Empire court and execute him, or else make him a slave to the Empire for life, I know,” Hunk retorts.

“Keith mentioned looking for some rebel group,” Pidge mutters. “Maybe that has something to do with this mess.”

“We don’t have time to play detective, here!” Lance hisses. “That ship is going to sail off, and it could be headed anywhere!”

“True,” Hunk muses, “but we might have time to pay his friends in West Arus a visit.”

Pidge and Lance stare at him. “The dragon and the tavern owner?”

Hunk nods slowly. “Call it a hunch, but if anyone can find him...I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Champion. What? Keith found him —  _ somehow _ — and maybe that juju goes both ways.”

“But that’s a two-week journey, that’s way too long!” Lance protests.

Pidge tilts their head. “Not on my new speedboat, it’s not. We could make it in a week, maybe less.”

“Your speedboat?” Hunk repeats. “The one that exploded, you mean?”

_ “New _ speedboat,” Pidge corrects. “So? Are we doing this?”

Keith is damn lucky that he’s Hunk’s best friend.


	3. Chapter 3

The hold of the bounty hunters’ ship is dark and wet, and Keith huddles in his cell, bruised head lolling back against the wet planks. It’s difficult to stay conscious — they hit him hard — but he fights to do so. This is a bad place to fall asleep. He’s not alone in the hold, or even in the cell. Other groaning bodies shift in the shadows, chained and battered like he is, but in even worse shape. 

Keith takes stock of himself. Besides his bruised, aching skull, he’s been stripped of his coat — and his weapons, including his blade. Keith hisses through his teeth in frustration, then pauses, feeling the weight still resting just beneath his collarbones. Shiro’s scale is still there, warm and solid and a way out. 

But Keith made a promise. And — and he can’t risk leading Shiro here, straight into the Empire’s clutches again. No. He won’t do that. The resolution is strangely soothing. Keith closes his eyes, feels the rock and creak of the galleon’s hull, and shivers. He counts each breath, in and out, in and out. The scale is so warm against his skin, like it wants him to notice, wants him to use it. 

Keith won’t. He won’t. 

*

Shiro starts dreaming a week after Keith leaves West Arus, and him.

He can’t remember the last time he dreamed. He dreamed when he was imprisoned in the Fang as Sendak’s so-called Champion, certainly. Those dreams were more like night terrors, always blurry and violent, and the nightmare didn’t stop upon waking. He never thought those dreams were anything more than the natural response to what Sendak did to him — never considered they might be the result of their warped Heartscale bond. 

Shiro  _ had _ felt that bond, and it wasn’t a good feeling. The mere thought of disobeying Sendak was suffocating, a noose tightening around his throat in warning, a constant reminder that his mind, his body, his very heart, was not his own. After he first met Keith and sent him from the prison in a desperate attempt to save Allura from his own fate, Shiro had been ill for the rest of the day, and well into the night, dry heaving and feverish as the bond punished him for that act of disobedience. Even if Sendak had not explicitly ordered him not to free Keith, the bond knew he had done wrong. 

And Shiro still remembers especially that when he sank his teeth into Keith’s shoulder, for a long and terrible moment he heard Sendak’s voice, his own voice, echoing through him, telling him to bite just a little harder, to not let go of the shivering, bleeding boy. It’s not a good memory, but it woke him up, that single sharp moment. It was the horror at himself, at what Sendak had twisted him into to even consider such an awful thing, that forced him to shake off the bond’s compulsion for long enough to let go, to get Keith out, to save him.

That’s how Keith sees it, anyway. Shiro doesn’t know if he saved him, or inadvertently turned him into just another Sendak. Keith isn’t like Sendak  _ now;  _ he isn’t spiteful or selfish or sadistic, but Sendak wasn’t always that way, either. The bond itself corrupts, Shiro thinks. Allura has tried to remind him of its origins, its true intent, but that’s for Alteans, not Galra.

Truthfully, Shiro fears that something in the pairing of Galrans and Alteans themselves taints the Heartscale bond, irrational though that fear might be. Yet these thoughts keep him up at night — the thought that, by telling Keith to take his scale, Shiro’s made him into a monster. 

He doesn’t blame Keith for it. Shiro’s sure that Keith thinks he does, and part of him wants to, but he cannot. Especially not when he thinks of Keith under him, bound and helpless with tears streaming down his cheeks. Shiro is still baffled as to why Keith let him do such a thing to him. He’s equally baffled as to why he agreed. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know why he made advances upon Keith at all when he awoke on Keith’s ship. Keith is beautiful — yes. Keith saved him — yes. But Shiro is not...typically so forward. Somehow he doubts Keith is, either.

Perhaps they are  _ both  _ terribly compelled by this bond, and that’s an intriguing thought. As far as Shiro knows, Sendak never felt any such compulsion towards him, but Keith...the earnest tremor in his voice had been genuine when he said he trusted Shiro. Shiro knows liars, and Keith isn’t one. And yet. He’s also so young, so naive. There’s plenty of time for the world to make him cruel.

Shiro is being cynical, and he knows it, and Allura scolds him for it, and he probably deserves that. But it’s hard — painful, really — to try to hope when he’s so afraid the vicious cycle will just start anew.

And then he dreams — dreams of Keith. 

He’s on a ship, a great golden ship which cuts through the blue waves swift and sure. There’s someone standing beside him, the wind whipping through their long black hair. It’s Keith, with his sun-kissed skin and eyes like the midnight sky on a full moon, a color that has not yet been named, and perhaps never will be. 

He looks at Shiro, and smiles, and squeezes his hand. Shiro looks down, their linked hands resting on the taffrail, and finds himself smiling, too. He doesn’t know why. It’s just...nice, to be there beside him.

“How long ‘til we reach land, do you think?” Keith asks, tilting his head up towards the cloudless sky with a thoughtful furrow of his brow.

Shiro has no idea. “Where are we going?” he asks. The wind carries his voice off along the waves, but Keith hears him — of course he does.

Keith’s smile widens. His expression is soft, so soft it hurts. “Where do you want to go, Shiro?”

The question hits him as powerfully as the sea against the bow before them. “Anywhere,” Shiro breathes, overwhelmed with the possibilities, “everywhere.”

Keith squeezes his hand again, and nods, like it’s that easy. “Everywhere,” he repeats firmly, like a promise, and Shiro wakes up.

The mystery of the dreams’ delay becomes clear when Shiro is bathing that morning, frowning as he soaps up his hair and tries not to think of Keith in the bath, looking at him with so much hurt and longing. Shiro stretches out in the tub, debating whether or not to go to the trouble of shifting so he can clean his wings, too, which is always a process. Lost in thought, his foot itches, and he lifts it to scratch, then pauses, peering at the fading sigil there with slow realization. 

A few days ago, while sleepily making his way to the bathroom one morning, he’d accidentally cut his foot on a nail in a loose floorboard. He had thought little of it except that it really fucking hurt, but now that he studies it, clean of blood and slowly healing, he realizes the sigil’s scar has been broken by the nail’s quick slice, rendering whatever magic it still contained null and void. 

The sigil was meant to muffle his bond with Sendak, and it had eventually failed in that...but it must have continued to muffle his bond with Keith. Shiro breathes in, breathes out, trying to steady himself, because now that he is aware of it — he can feel the new bond, and the feeling terrifies him.

It isn’t like Sendak, he tells himself, it isn’t smothering and choking and consuming, but the panic climbing in his throat won’t listen to reason, because when he sits in the quiet of the bath, he feels the firm weight in his chest, as if his heart itself is bound in iron. Shiro begins to tremble, and cannot seem to stop. 

He doesn’t know how he gets out of the bath, dries himself, and dresses hastily, but minutes — seconds, hours? — later, he finds himself panting in front of Allura’s bedroom, pressing his palm to the door and calling for her in their language, without a single spoken sound. _ Allura. The bond  _ — _ I feel it. Help me. Please, help me  _ —

Allura opens the door, standing there in her nightgown, hair a mess and eyes wide.  _ Takashi, _ she says, and then aloud, “Oh, Shiro...come in, come in. Your hair is soaking wet...and you’re shivering, oh dear.” She fetches her quilt for him and drapes it around his shoulders, and they sit together on her window seat, Shiro staring down at the floor and trying to breathe while Allura watches him with worry.

“I started dreaming,” Shiro whispers. “When I cut my foot the other day, it made the protective sigil stop working. That’s why I didn’t feel the bond, before. But now…” He swallows.

“Are they bad dreams?” Allura asks carefully. 

Shiro swallows again, harder, and shakes his head more than a little helplessly. “No — no, it was a good dream, Allura, it was —  _ too  _ good, I —–”

“Shiro,” she murmurs, “there is no such thing as too good.”

He shakes his head again and wrings his hands. “This was! He —  _ he _ was. How am I — how can I believe that he won’t be just like Sendak? That this power won’t ruin us both?”

“It’s not a power that is meant to ruin anyone,” Allura points out. “You know that is not what the Heartscales are meant to do.”

Shiro looks up fiercely, panic flooding him anew. “But even then — even with Altean mates, the bond is — it’s  _ everything, _ it’s a terrible amount of power to have over someone —”

“And why should it be terrible?” Allura murmurs. “They aren’t about having power over anyone, Shiro. It’s about trust. It’s about knowing someone more deeply than you know anyone else — it’s about a mutual bond, not control, not subjugation, not using someone. And I know...that is not how you have experienced it.” She reaches out, grasping his right hand, and squeezes, turning his hand over in her palm to gaze at the scales there, which will never shift away. Sendak used the bond to create it, to show Shiro how easily he could keep a part of him forever trapped in-between forms. 

Shiro’s clawed fingers curl. “I think...maybe I am afraid that I cannot experience the bond in any other way,” he admits. 

Allura studies him. She leans back against the window frame. “Do you want to experience the bond in its original form with Keith?”

Shiro draws in a sharp breath. “As — as a mate, you mean?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Seeing as how you have already mated with him, as it were, you’ll forgive my curiosity.”

Shiro turns red. “I — I did not think you knew...um.”

Allura sighs at him. “Shiro, nobody mopes that much over someone who is just a casual acquaintance.” She pauses. “And neither of you are particularly quiet.”

Shiro turns somehow redder. “I am so sorry —”

She lifts a hand. “Don’t be sorry, answer the question.”

Shiro nibbles the inside of his cheek, toying with the thought of it, trying to imagine how it might be. “I...well, I’m not...entirely opposed to the idea.” He’s surprised to find this is the truth. “But,” he says hastily, “a Galran and an Altean, is that even possible?”

Allura shrugs. “You tell me. I find Galrans and humans rather sexually unappealing, myself, but clearly you disagree —”

Shiro covers his face. “Your Highness, please.”

“I’m sorry. It’s too easy to tease you.” Allura smiles, and releases his hand with a gentle squeeze. “But you still have reservations. What are they?”

“I don’t like the idea that the bond was forced upon us,” Shiro admits. “Even if it is part of some grand design, that we were destined to be bonded...well, Sendak and I were destined, too, but that didn’t turn out so well.”

“Not all bonds do,” Allura agrees. “But it is said we Alteans can tell the difference — can distinguish a well-fated bond from an ill-fated one.” Shiro’s heart skips a beat at this, and he ignores it. “As for the bonds being forced...not exactly. Not everyone can form a Heartscale bond with just anyone — Keith, for example, had contact with my Heartscale but no bond was formed. With you, however, the bond took.” She sighs. “As for Sendak — once the Empire discovered the Heartscale bond, they had an unfair advantage. It seems that if a Galra is fully aware that the bond has the potential to exist, it is far more likely that the bond will form than if they are unaware...perhaps that is part of their strange magic.”

“Keith didn’t know,” Shiro murmurs. “I didn’t tell him, just said...he should take the scale.”

“And Sendak knew from the start,” Allura says. “He knew what of the power within your Heartscale, and with whatever magic it is that Galrans possess, he claimed it.” Allura hesitates. “In truth, Shiro, I don’t know if what they do can be called a bond at all. It isn’t mutual, and I doubt it’s destined. Sendak was clearly not meant to be your mate. He only wanted you as his thrall, and such a desire would not sustain any true Heartscale bond.”

Shiro nods slowly. “Does the bond have to be founded on a mutual desire, then?”

Allura hums. “I have always thought it so, yes.”

Shiro considers this. “The first Heartscale bond with a Galran and Altean,” he muses, “was that...a true bond?”

Allura’s gaze darkens. She sighs, a great sorrow heavy in the sound. “Between Emperor Zarkon and Lady Honerva, you mean. Yes. It pains me to say it, but I believe, when it began, their bond was true.”

“And then?”

“Then they corrupted each other,” Allura sighs. “Their bond went both ways, but they were both too ambitious, too eager to have Altea for their own. Of course we cannot prove it, but I am certain Honerva told Zarkon the secret of our Heartscales, the best-kept secret of our kind. Who knows — perhaps she also gave him some tool to use against us, some form of alchemy to give the Galra the ability to force our Heartscales to bond with them.” 

She shakes her head. “But I can tell you now that no matter how true their bond once was, it has now warped them both so wholly that it cannot be mended. You’re right to say that the bond is very powerful. They used that for evil. But that is not its intended purpose, Shiro. That is  _ not _ what our Heartscale bonds are doomed to become.”

Her voice trembles with passion, and Shiro realizes she has thought about this, agonized over it, a great deal. He blinks at her in some surprise. “You want me to be Keith’s mate.”

Allura frowns at him. “This is not about what I want, Shiro. I am asking you to think about what  _ you _ want. What _ do _ you want, Shiro? How long are you going to wait, wondering and fearing if Keith will use the bond against you?”

“What else can I do?” Shiro whispers.

“Live,” Allura retorts, a fierceness shining in her eyes that Shiro remembers from days at court so long ago, when she sat upon a throne beside her father, and commanded respect and devotion simply by breathing. “You can  _ live,  _ Shiro.”

“But Keith —”

“Keith,” Allura says firmly, “is a good man. You know that, and so do I, or I would not have let him leave this tavern. He doesn’t _ want _ to put you in another prison, Shiro — so stop expecting him to.”

Shiro swallows. He wets his lips. “It is hard,” he whispers, “to hope...to trust, that this time things will be different.”

“Yes,” Allura agrees, “but it’s worth it to try. We have to believe that, Shiro — if nothing else.”

*

In the belly of the ship, time becomes more or less meaningless. Keith begins to worry that his head was hit harder than he thought, because it’s difficult to stay awake, and when he is awake every moment is an exhausting effort to keep his eyes open. The other prisoners make this effort slightly easier for him — the other person in his cell is Galran, with blue-purple skin, large tapered ears, and watchful yellow eyes which glow dimly in the darkness upon him. 

He’s bigger than Keith, as most Galra are, with a long, listlessly flicking tail that bears the old scars of ropes across its otherwise smooth, semi-reptilian surface. It’s hard not to stare at the tail. Keith’s heard of Galra with such features — it fuels the rumors that the Galra are distantly related to Alteans, but never gained the power of shifting, creating their vendetta against dragonkind – but never seen one for himself. Keith doesn’t really believe those rumors anyway. There’s no ancient vendetta. The Empire is just greedy and violent.

But it’s an interesting idea to consider he might be a distant relative of dragons.

His cellmate is quiet, and they barely interact until one night a storm comes upon them, rocking the ship’s hold with a vengeance and letting enough water into the hold that the prisoners begin to panic, filling the darkness with shouts and curses and rattling chains. The ship lurches dangerously to the side and Keith is thrown across the cell and into his cellmate, who grunts at the impact. 

Keith tries to scramble away, but his numb limbs won’t obey him, and his manacles are tangled with his cellmate’s tail, of all things. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” Keith croaks, flinching back when his cellmate looms over him, eyes narrow and bright, but the Galra just makes a low sound and awkwardly wraps his manacled arms around Keith.

Keith blinks blearily, with confusion and the impression that he should be alarmed by this. “Hush,” his cellmate says quietly, roughly accented. “It is alright.”

Keith swallows. He doesn’t entirely know what’s happening, but he does know that his cellmate is large enough that he’s no longer being thrown about by the stormy seas, and when he slowly relaxes, too tired to fight much at all, his cellmate begins to purr — another Galran trait he’s heard talk of, but never seen for himself. It’s weirdly calming. Keith’s eyelids grow heavy.

“I am Regris,” his cellmate adds, a calming whisper amidst the panicked din of the ship’s hold. He shuffles further into the corner, so that they’re both tucked away from the rusty cell bars, where the other prisoners are flailing and shouting too close for comfort.

“...Keith,” Keith mumbles. He struggles to think of something else to say. “Why...why are you here?”

Regris chuckles, a sound that seems too dry for this damp cell. “Oh,” he says, “I do not like the Empire very much.” Keith thinks this is important, but his blurry mind cannot fully grasp why. Regris clears his throat. “I was caught killing an Empire commander. Not a very important one. Sadly.”

Keith furrows his brow. “...Huh. But you’re...Galra?”

Regris shrugs. “Means nothing. The Empire is not my people.”

“Who are your people, then?” Keith whispers.

“Galra, but not Empire,” Regris says. His hands are heavy, protective, Keith thinks, over Keith’s back. “That is all I can say.” He sounds apologetic, and tilts his head. “Why are _ you _ here?”

Keith has to think very hard for a moment before he even remembers. “Uh,” he mutters, “the bounty hunters...thought I was someone’s son. Someone named, um...Krolia…”

Regris stiffens against him, golden eyes wide and round in the darkness. He says nothing, but his hold on Keith tightens.

Keith sighs. “But I never knew my mother,” he admits. “I just wanted to find her…”

“I’m sure she wants to find you, also,” Regris offers, his voice strained. 

It’s surprisingly sweet of him to say so. Keith smiles, dopey and sleepy again. “Mm,” he says. “That would be...nice...very nice…”

He drifts back into darkness again, and Regris doesn’t let go.

*

“What do you mean,” Shiro repeats, “Keith is  _ missing?” _

The  _ Volterra _ ’s first mate and quartermaster, a man enigmatically known only as Hunk, stares at him with eyes narrowed and arms folded and says, “I  _ mean, _ he’s missing. He was taken by bounty hunters and now he’s on a ship bound for who knows where, but wherever he’s going, they’re almost certainly going to kill him — or worse.”

Hunk stands in Allura’s kitchen along with the navigator, Pidge, and the first gunner, Lance. All three look very grim. Allura slowly sinks down into her chair with a similar expression. “Shiro, this is not good,” she says.

Shiro shakes his head, still uncomprehending. “But — but that’s not — that makes no sense. If he were in danger, he would have called upon me —” Allura and Coran shoot him warning glares and he clears his throat.

Lance squints at him. “Pardon? Called upon you? Buddy, he’s not exactly within earshot.”

“But you can find him,” Hunk presses, a knowing glint in his eye. He steps forward, and Shiro takes a nervous step back. “Can’t you?”

Shiro hesitates. “I —” He gulps. “No, I – I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Hunk’s tone is deadly. 

He shakes his head. “That’s not — are you certain about this?”

“Do we  _ look  _ uncertain?” Pidge snaps.

Shiro eyes Allura and Coran anxiously, then clears his throat and says, with care, “I don’t know where Keith is, and I’m not sure why you think I can find him, but I can certainly — try. Do you have any idea where the ship went?”

“South, as best we can tell,” Pidge mutters. 

Coran grimaces. “New Daibazaal. Hells, that’s no good, no good at all.”

“What do they want with him in New Daibazaal?” Allura exclaims. “I thought only high-profile criminals were tried and sentenced in the courts there.”

“They aren’t courts,” Shiro whispers. “They don’t — serve justice, there. Oh, Keith…”

“So, will you help us?” Lance demands. “If you even can, that is.”

“I don’t know if I can be of much use,” Shiro says, honestly, “but if Keith is in danger, then...well, he saved my life once.”

Allura stands briskly, nodding to her guests. “Would you be so kind as to give us a moment, please? This is distressing news...Coran, get them some drinks downstairs, will you?”

“Of course, of course,” Coran says with alarmingly false cheer, and herds the angry pirates out of the kitchen, leaving Allura and Shiro alone.

Shiro leans heavily against the counter. “This makes no sense,” he repeats. “Unless Keith lost the Heartscale — why wouldn’t he use it?”

“Has he lost the Heartscale?” Allura asks. “You would know. You would feel its absence.”

Shiro feels that Keith still has it, but it doesn’t make sense. 

“He made a promise to you,” Allura says, when Shiro is silent. “He’s not going to break it, Shiro.”

“So he would rather die?” Shiro retorts, his voice breaking. Allura hears it, and reaches out, but he turns away. “New Daibazaal’s prisons are terrible places, Allura. He won’t survive there, he —” He stops himself with a shiver. The Fang was bad, but New Daibazaal is worse; they’ve had more time to perfect the art of breaking their prisoners, and imagining Keith in such a place makes his blood run cold.

“Perhaps you can still find him,” Allura suggests quietly. Shiro looks up. “You told me that he found you in those strange mists, when no one else could, before you were even bonded. You didn’t call out to him then — but he called out to you.”

“How do I do that?” Shiro whispers. “How do I call out to him, as he did me?”

Allura presses a hand to her heart. “Find him in here.” She rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t give me that look, I’m quite serious. If you can still feel the presence of his bond, then focus on that. Stop avoiding it like I know you’re trying to.”

“I’m not...trying, to avoid it,” Shiro sighs. “It’s more like an instinct.” A survival instinct, he doesn’t say, but he thinks Allura knows anyway. “But — I’ll try.” He frowns. “And maybe he’ll come to his senses and use the Heartscale to call me to him after all.”

“I thought you didn’t want him to use the Heartscale,” Allura says lightly.

“I don’t want him to  _ die,”  _ Shiro snaps, “or else be tortured, which is what they will do to him in New Daibazaal!” Allura blinks at him, taken aback, and Shiro realizes his voice has been steadily increasing in volume. He pauses. “I...sorry. But...I would rather be compelled by the Heartscale bond than see Keith meet such a fate.”

“You wouldn’t be compelled,” Allura reminds him. “Not if you truly want to save him.”

Shiro exhales, and finds himself nodding. “I do,” he agrees, and it feels good to say it, to let it settle whole and real and all his own, deep within him. “And I will,” he adds. Allura smiles.

*

It is unbearable to have his hands and ankles manacled day after day after day — if what is passing are days at all, and not decades, which is what they feel like — but Regris’ presence beside him makes the torment slightly more tolerable. Keith isn’t sure why he was ever frightened by his cellmate; he may be quiet and look imposing, but in actuality he is very gentle and surprisingly funny. Or maybe that’s the head injury talking, because a few times when Keith laughs, Regris looks alarmed.

Keith’s head does hurt less, but he’s still woozy and sleeps often. Maybe that’s a mercy, because the boredom also wears on them, and does so very quickly. They try telling each other stories when Keith is lucid enough to do so, very quietly so they won’t be heard and punished for it. 

Thankfully, the guards who check on the prisoners from time to time and bring them stale bread and precious water and even more precious slices of sunlight have not punished them for Regris’s protective cuddling of Keith. The guards seem very amused by it, even more so when Regris growls at them and shields Keith’s body from them with his own. Regris is very distressed by their guffaws and crude remarks, but Keith, again, just thinks it’s sort of funny. 

“Hah,” he rasps after it happens the first time, “they think you’re sweet on me.”

Regris peers down at him with his worried lantern eyes. “What? Sweet, how?”

Regris has continued to be cagey about where he’s from, but it’s clear the common tongue isn’t one he’s fully used to — some things get lost in translation.

Keith struggles to find a way to say it euphemistically in a way that will make sense and finally gives up. “He thinks you fucked me,” Keith mumbles with a yawn.

Regris makes a quiet, horrified little screech like a startled parrot. Keith giggles at him, then winces. Gods, his head aches. “But I did not!” Regris exclaims, and then, when their much less friendly neighbors grumble at the noise, he repeats in a hiss, “I did not —  _ no!” _

Keith pats his arm as best he can with his manacled hands. “I know, bud. ‘s okay.”

Regris frowns at him. “It is not ‘okay,’” he insists. “That would be an honorless act, Keith.”

Keith yawns again, wider, and slumps against him. “Sure, sure. Wouldn’t want that.” He nudges Regris. “Unless you would.”

Regris splutters at him. “Keith! Do not say such things!”

Keith pouts. “Oh, so you  _ wouldn’t? _ Wow.”

Regris’s face turns violently bright purple. “I — you are pretty, Keith, but —”

“Pretty!” Keith hoots. “I’m pretty!”

“SHUT IT!” another prisoner snarls. 

“Oh, your head is very hurt,” Regris whispers. “Shush, Keith.”

“Make me,” Keith mumbles with no heat to it. Regris doesn’t know what to make of that, which makes it funnier.

Regris sighs at him. “Keith. How is your memory?”

Keith blinks. “Memory?” He tilts his head, then winces, and stops doing that. “I remember things.”

“What do you remember?” Regris’s voice is low and soothing; Keith can’t not answer him.

“So much,” Keith mumbles. “Sure is a lot up here...the good, the bad, and the ugly.” He snorts.

“What’s the good?” Regris asks.

“Shiro,” Keith says without thinking, then blushes, because _ really?  _ The scale pulses against his chest, gently, like a reminder. 

“What is Shiro?” 

_ “What,”  _ Keith repeats, and snickers. “No, who. Shiro is a who. A good who. I think. He’s done some bad. But I want him to do good — like he wants to do. Does that make sense?”

“He is your...friend?”

“Uh,” Keith mumbles, “friend...sure…”

Regris blinks at him and then says, with greater understanding, “Ah, you fucked him, yes?”

Keith blushes. “Maybe.”

“You don’t remember?” Regris exclaims, concerned.

Keith snorts, leaning against the damp wooden planks. “I’d need a harder hit to the head to forget _ that.” _

“Ah. So — he is not just a friend, then? A lover, or partner?”

Keith thinks very hard about it. “Um,” he muses, “I think...I don’t know. Maybe we’re married.”

_ “Maybe?” _

“No, no,” Keith says, frowning, trying to clear his head, “not married, no. Close, though...there was something...and I left him...why did I do that?”

“You may be more hurt than I thought,” Regris whispers. “Was this Shiro...did he mistreat you?”

“No!” Keith says fiercely, jerking out of his hazy stupor. “He saved my life. And I just — I just wanted to save him, too, but I messed that up, real bad…” Against his will, his eyes fill with tears. Gods, head injuries are the worst. Again, Shiro’s scale warms, but this time it is less like an insistent reminder and more of a precious comfort which Keith clings to, though he fears his grip is slipping.

“Oh, Keith, it is alright,” Regris assures. “I am sorry. Don’t be sad. Shiro seems a very good man.”

“Yes,” Keith agrees, quietly. “Yes, he is — and I won’t forget that.”

*

Shiro dreams of Keith again, and again, and again.

He supposes this is a consequence of seeking Keith out, but after a while, it doesn’t feel like a consequence at all — he finds himself, for the first time, genuinely awaiting sinking into sleep, into a new journey with Keith by his side. The dreams sometimes feel like they last for months, even years, but they are never boring — just peaceful, strangely domestic in a way Shiro never thought he would enjoy. There is a quiet bliss in their dream moments together, a familiarity Shiro treasures. 

Are they real, glimpses of a possible future, or simply wishful thinking? Shiro doesn’t know, but he does know that they will lead him to Keith — he hopes, anyway.

They have been on the navigator Pidge’s speedboat for a week or so, now, and still Keith is nowhere to be found. The sea is very large. Shiro has shifted a few times, soared high above the waves for as long as he dares, scanning the great blue expanse for the bounty hunters’ vessel, but to no avail. Once, he catches sight of a Galran Navy ship too close for comfort, and hastily returns to their boat. After that, he is more careful on his brief flights.

It’s on the eighth night, a night of clear skies and warm breezes, that Shiro dreams and feels at once that this is more than just a fantasy or prophetic vision.

He is in the dark, damp hold of a ship, in a cell with rusted bars, and within the cell is Keith, clasped in the thick arms of a Galran prisoner, who looks to be asleep. Keith is shivering, and there is a nasty bruise on his temple, alongside a gash encrusted with blood. Shiro starts towards him with a growl at the Galra, heart pounding — has Keith been attacked? But...no, there is something more tender in their embrace, he thinks. He hates that that’s almost a worse thought.

Keith’s eyes open at the sound of his growling, and when he peers at Shiro it is with recognition and bewilderment. “Huh?” Keith mumbles. “What’re you doing here?”

The Galra doesn’t wake, and when Shiro approaches, Keith wriggles out of his grasp to stare at Shiro. Shiro’s heart pangs — Keith’s face is gaunt and grimy, and his body bows with exhaustion. “Keith,” he breathes, and reaches out, “why didn’t you call to me?”

Keith blinks, and then his face twists; he shrinks back against the bars. “No,” he breathes, “no, I know this is a trick, I know — Shiro said the bond corrupts, makes me want to control him, but I won’t —”

_ “Keith!”  _ Shiro cries, softly. “You’ll die here!”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Keith mumbles, delirious but determined. “Shiro can’t — he can’t come here, to me. They would hurt him.”

“Keith, it’s me,” Shiro breathes, going to him, cupping Keith’s feverish face in his hands. Keith looks up at him uncertainly. “Our bond — it isn’t corrupted. It doesn’t have to be. I was wrong, Keith. I was wrong to push you away. Please, come back. Show me how to find you.”

Keith smiles, small and sad. “You’re very kind,” he whispers, “but the real Shiro wouldn’t say those things.”

“Keith, I’m real,” Shiro whispers back, “I’m real, and I’m sorry. I was afraid. I’m still afraid. But you aren’t like Sendak. I’m not afraid of you, Keith — but I am afraid of what the Empire will do to you.”

Keith just shakes his head. “I don’t know where we are, Shiro,” he whispers, voice tiny and fragile. His wound needs tending to, and there’s a dazed resignation in his eyes that terrifies Shiro more than anything else. “I don’t know…”

Shiro’s grip on him tightens; he presses closer and Keith draws in a sharp, rattling breath. At the sight of his filthy, torn clothes and rubbed-raw wrists and ankles, something within Shiro roars. His grip tightens further, and Keith whimpers, and Shiro realizes his claws are scratching Keith’s cheek. He releases Keith hastily, and Keith does not resist, head lolling limply and eyes fixed dimly upon him. “I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers. “I’ll find you, Keith, I swear.”

Keith makes a soft sound, and closes his eyes, and Shiro wakes up.

Hunk eyes him — he’s sitting at the bow of the small speedboat, on the first watch. “Bad dreams?” he asks archly. “You were saying  _ Keith  _ quite a bit.”

“Yes,” Shiro breathes, rubbing his temple, “yes, I — I saw him.”

Hunk stiffens. The human leans forward in disbelief. “You _ saw _ him? What...hm. You don’t mean you just dreamed of him...do you?”

“No,” Shiro admits, hanging his head. “But I couldn’t help him, Hunk. He’s injured, and stubborn, and — and —”

“Hey,” Hunk says, brow furrowed, “no panicking allowed on this boat. Once we get back to the  _ Volterra _ , then, you can panic — but this is a vessel of serene calm and clear problem-solving strategies only. Got it?” Shiro nods sheepishly. “Now — did he tell you where he is?”

“No,” Shiro replies, hunching his shoulders. “But I think — he’s closer than he was, if I could dream of him so vividly.”

“Great,” Hunk says in a tone that suggests otherwise, “we’re now basing our navigation off of dream intensity. I’m sure Pidge will just love that.”

“I wish we had more to go on, too.” Shiro exhales, hands curling into fists. Hunk watches him warily. “He’s in bad shape, Hunk. Really bad shape. I think they hit him in the head…”

Hunk sighs. “Oh, sure. Keith’s been hit in the head so many damn times.” Shiro blinks at him. “What? It’s true. He always gets a little silly afterwards, for a little while, but he turns out alright later. He’s tough, you know. Though I guess life kind of forced his hand, there.”

“Do you think he’ll be alright this time?” Shiro asks.

Hunk hesitates. His frown is not promising. “Tell me something,” Hunk mutters. “You said Keith was Galra. That true?”

“Yes,” Shiro says, after a moment’s hesitation. He doesn’t think that lying to Hunk would end well for him. “He is. Half, I would guess.”

“If that’s true, then no, he won’t be ‘alright’ this time,” Hunk retorts. “If he survives this, he won’t be able to just let that go. Not being able to let that go is what got him into this mess. But…” His frown fades into a thoughtful smile. “Maybe that’s what he needs. A drive to live through this. He was looking for his mother, and if she’s out there...that would be good for him, I think. A family.” Hunk looks up at Shiro. “In a way, ‘spose we’ve been his family, his crew. But Keith is...he’s always been a little distant from us. I don’t think he can help it. He wasn’t distant from you, though. Why not from you?”

It’s not a question Shiro is meant to dodge, but he tries, anyway. “Must be my dashing good looks,” he tries.

Hunk narrows his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not buyin’ that,” he says dismissively. “You’re alright, sure, but Keith’s not  _ that _ shallow.” He pauses. “He’s maybe a little shallow — he’s a pirate, after all. But that’s besides the point. The point is, if we do find Keith, and we do get him out of there,  _ don’t _ just abandon him again.”

“He was the one who left me!” Shiro protests.

Hunk grumbles at him. “Yeah, because you’re both inept at expressing your true feelings, I’m fucking aware.”

Shiro thinks that was a little below the belt, but takes the criticism as gracefully he can, sulking only a little. 

“I’m not saying marry him,” Hunk amends. “Don’t do that, actually. Were you planning on doing that?”

“I — no?” Shiro stammers. “Why would I — we barely know each other!”

“Just had to check.” Hunk’s gaze drifts to Lance. “ _ He’s _ been married five times, technically, all in port brothels. Don’t ask. All the marriages were annulled, bless the gods.”

“Oh, dear,” Shiro manages. “I don’t want to marry Keith in a port brothel.”

Hunk squints at him. “Interesting wording. So it’s just the venue that’s in question?” Shiro turns red and Hunk laughs at him. “I’m kidding. All I’m saying is — when this is over, promise you’ll be there for him. Just give it a chance, see what happens. Something tells me both of you could use a little less lonely brooding and a little more of each other’s company.” 

“You’re probably right about that,” Shiro concedes. “Alright. I...I promise. If he wants me there, I’ll be there.”

_ “If he wants me,” _ Hunk echoes, and rolls his eyes. “Shirogane, I think Keith would still want you even as a dragon bigger than a sloop. Don’t be daft.”

Shiro struggles to breathe, much less form words. “I — that’s —  _ huh?” _

“Don’t strain yourself,” Hunk sighs. “Get some sleep — and some dream maps would be nice.”

“I’ll do my best,” Shiro wheezes, and sinks back down to his cot, staring at the side of the boat. He thinks of the dreams of the two of them, hand in hand, on a ship sailing to meet the sunset. 

Marriage is far too big a word now, but...there’s a future in those dreams, Shiro thinks, a future that he won’t allow the Empire to take from them, unlikely though that future might be. Give it a chance, Hunk said. Yes. Shiro wants that — to give this, to give _ them,  _ a chance. What do they have to lose?

He closes his eyes, draws in a deep breath of saltwater and night air, and tries with all his heart to find Keith once more, searching through a sea of shadows and unanswered pleas.

*

“Keith,” Regris rasps in the shrouded air of the ship’s hold, on a night so dark that not a single shred of moonlight greets them through the cracks between the boards, “I have not told you the whole truth.”

Keith stirs, lifting his head with effort — he has been trying to move it more, for it’s more numb than aching now, and this scares him. “What do you mean?” he mumbles. “Truth about what?”

“I told you I killed an Empire commander,” Regris whispers, “and that my people are Galra, but not Empire. But there is more, Keith. You said — you told me why you were arrested. You were accused of being the son of Krolia, a leader of the Blade of Marmora.”

Keith nods slowly. “Yes...but falsely accused, I don’t know her, or the Blade…” He falters. “Wait — I never told you about the Blades —  _ Regris  _ — _ ?” _

“I am a Blade, Keith,” Regris whispers. Keith is frozen, staring up at him. “Krolia is my commander, and you are her son.”

Keith tries to shove at him, but his hands are bound and useless, and he only succeeds in unbalancing himself, falling back with a pained groan. Regris scrambles towards him, but Keith shakes his head, and the Galra stops short, expression anguished. “You cannot possibly know that,” Keith gasps, “you — then, you knew, all this time — but why —  _ she knows of me?” _ His voice trembles violently.

“Keith,” Regris whispers, “she wanted to meet with you, but it was dangerous — some Blades were sent to keep stock of your whereabouts, and your wellbeing —”

“And she couldn’t do it herself?” Keith chokes out, twenty-one years worth of anger and grief bubbling up all at once, hot tears spilling down his cheeks, blinding him, for he is unable to wipe them away. “When my father died — did she watch that, too, and keep stock of _ that?”  _

Regris shrinks back at the vitriol in his voice. “Keith — it is not like that, she did not want to complicate your life by revealing you have Galran blood —”

“Well, too fucking bad, because it’s already gotten pretty fucking complicated since I bonded with a goddamn dragon!” Keith shrieks. 

Regris freezes. _ “What.” _

It is then that they realize none of the other prisoners have yelled at them, because outside, the sound of howling wind and waves crashing again and again against the hull have become so deafening that little else can be heard. It is a deceptively slow build into chaos — the most dangerous kind. 

“There’s — a storm,” Keith says dazed, feeling the electricity prickle through the air the moment before a bolt of lightning illuminates the terrified faces of the prisoners for a split second before a vicious wave punches a hole straight through the hull.

Keith screams; he’s pretty certain of that. The truth is, captain though he may be, the sea has never really lost its grip of visceral fear upon him. Keith respects the sea as one respects the gods — and he respects it more than any god, for the sea’s power is far easier to see, to feel, to know. But he has no illusion of control over it. That’s why a good navigator is so valuable to a captain — because, in an instant, the sea could turn from placid blue to roiling black. Sometimes, such currents and maelstroms can be predicted.

Other times, the sea is a capricious devil. This is one of those times.

Keith hardly has time to take a breath before the hold is consumed by seawater, and with it, the flailing, chained prisoners, who strain against their bonds and make the mistake of screaming underwater, releasing their precious air to the merciless waves. Keith holds his breath, forcing his eyes open to look for Regris, gut twisting at what he sees — the Galra has been struck by a torn-loose iron bar from one of the cells, and floats limply unconscious beside him. 

If Keith had breath to spare for curses, he would curse. As it is, he grabs for Regris, his hand closing tight around his friend’s tail just before another wave splinters the hull open entirely.

The force is beyond jarring, teeth-rattling and bone-shattering, and blindly Keith swims — or rather flails, with his bound, heavy limbs — towards the surface, Regris’s added deadweight making the journey upwards ever harder. Their chains have been knocked free of their moorings, but the chains themselves remain, and perhaps in his normal state Keith would have been able to haul them both to safety, but his muscles are weak and burning from underuse, and he cannot free his hands and feet. 

The surface is too far away. Keith knows this, but strains ever upwards, frantic for oxygen. His vision spots, and into it drifts something silver.

The scale, still around his neck, floating almost serenely before him, shines like a beacon in the dark waves.

_ Shiro, _ Keith says, does not know if he cries it out to the ocean or in the pounding silence of his own skull,  _ Shiro, help me. _

Then his strength leaves him, and he does not feel when a scarred tail jerks in his limp grasp, and a strong arm wraps around his waist, and hauls him towards the starry sky.

*

When Shiro finally hears Keith’s call, it is unmistakable. 

Hunk can say all he wants about the questionable nature of his dream-maps, but when Shiro hears Keith’s voice in his head — or perhaps his heart — he knows at once its source. He stands on the boat, his dinner plate falling from his lap forgotten, and all heads turn towards him.

“Shiro?” Pidge asks. “What are you staring at?”

“Keith,” Shiro says simply, and leaps off the boat.

He is not compelled — not against his will. No, he hears, feels, can almost touch the desperate urgency in Keith’s call, the understanding that if he were not near the very jaws of death, Shiro would not be hearing his call at all. So Shiro is not compelled — he is as desperate as Keith is.

When Shiro surfaces, it is as a dragon, and though they have seen him shift before it has always been forewarned, so this time the boat erupts into a chorus of shocked shouts. Shiro’s wings beat ever upwards, and he lingers for a moment between the salt spray and the night sky to turn to them, his silver eyes somber. _ Follow me,  _ he advises them,  _ but know I will not waste any time waiting for you to catch up. _

That’s all the warning he gives them before he surges up towards the stars, and towards Keith, at last.

*

Shiro could not say how long the journey is, but it is still night when he finds the shipwreck.

The bounty hunters’ ship lies bashed into pieces against the sharp rocks of sharper cliffs — driven into them, no doubt, by the fast-moving storm Shiro can still smell in the uneasy air. He dives towards the ship, circling, and sees with dismay the bodies, unmoving, bobbing in the waves as they crash perpetually into the cliffs. But Keith is not among them — cannot be among them. He still lives; Shiro is certain of it. Shiro turns away, then, from the shipwreck, and towards the cliffs themselves, where the rocks continue in a deadly array. 

Bracing himself, Shiro makes for the largest of these rocks, landing upon it and slipping only a little as a wave crests just over the top of it. Shaking saltwater out of his eyes, Shiro studies the surf, the jagged shoreline, and then — within one of the small caves honeycombing the rocky face, he sees a golden glow, faint but still pulsing with lingering life. Shiro leaps from the rock to the shoreline, clambering through the surf and over the smaller rocks, uncaring of the many cuts they slice across his soft paws as he bounds across the pebbled shore and into the cave, ducking his horned head to gain access.

He sees Keith and lets out a low, mourning keen he did not know he was capable of making, the cave echoing with the sound as he falls to Keith’s side, at once nosing over him, nuzzling into his soaked and tangled hair, huffing in distress when he does not rouse. His wrists and ankles are raw but the manacles are gone, and the rest of him is pale, tinged blue in an awful way.  _ Keith,  _ Shiro calls softly,  _ Keith, Keith, I am here, come back to me. _

When Keith’s eyes open, little more than bleary slits, every fiber of Shiro’s being sings with the relief of it. When he answers in kind, in the unspoken language of dragons, of Altea, the song grows ever sweeter.  _ Shiro,  _ he whispers, slumping in Shiro’s grasp, for Shiro’s clawed hand is wrapped around his entire body, cradling him.  _ You found me. _

_ Always, _ Shiro promises, then realizes Keith is shivering, his skin feverish and clammy.  _ You are too cold, Keith,  _ he says with worry.  _ The others will be here soon, but you will not survive such cold. _

Keith blinks, dazed.  _ You make me feel warm,  _ he mumbles.

_ Oh!  _ Shiro exclaims, delighted with his insight.  _ You are right! That is a good idea.  _ Maybe what Shiro had in mind doesn’t exactly align with Keith’s, though, because when Shiro’s jaws open, Keith’s eyes go very wide. When Shiro licks him, Keith makes a funny sound. Keith tastes like saltwater, but Shiro doesn’t mind.  _ That is warm, right? _ Shiro asks anxiously. 

He is terribly self-conscious of the undeniable fact that his tongue is easily the size of a small canoe, and Keith is also roughly comparable to the size of a small canoe. 

Slowly, still blinking, but with a bit less panic than before, Keith nods, and Shiro feels him relax against Shiro’s palm; in fact, he curls into it, and Shiro swears he shivers a little less.  _ Very warm,  _ Keith agrees, and when Shiro licks him again, he scrunches up his face, and Shiro rumbles with amusement at the sight of his hair, sticking up every which way. _ Hey.  _ Keith doesn’t sound very upset, though.

_ You are very small, that is not my fault, _ Shiro retorts, swiping his tongue with care over his bare feet, which look concerningly blue. Keith squawks and squirms, and Shiro peers down at him.  _ Ticklish? _

_ You just licked my feet,  _ Keith says.  _ That’s  _ — _ disgusting, Shiro. _

Again, however, he doesn’t sound very upset. It is good his sense of humor is still intact — maybe Hunk was right about his tolerance for head injuries after all.

_ Yes, and now I will lick your face,  _ Shiro teases, and does just that — then gets hit in the face with a rock. The rock promptly falls and nearly hits Keith on its way down, and Shiro goes from cooing mate to snarling monster in half a second, bringing Keith close to his chest, claws closing protectively around him. 

They are not alone as he first foolishly assumed. On the other side of the cave lies the Galra from Keith’s cell, and Shiro’s eyes narrow. The Galra is injured — his forehead is badly bruised, and he’s clutching his side, but his eyes glow fiercely and his face is twisted in a determined snarl. “Let go of Keith!” he shouts, doubling over in pain even as he does so, and fumbling for another rock. “Don’t eat him!”

Shiro pauses, and blinks owlishly at him.  _ I would not eat Keith,  _ he protests indignantly.  _ Keith is my mate. _

Keith makes a startled sound in his palm and the Galra blanches. “Oh,” he says. “You — are the dragon...are you Shiro?”

Clearly, this Galra is not the threat he initially seemed, though Shiro still has Many Questions about the way he was holding Keith in his dream.  _ Yes. Who are you? _

“Regris,” Regris pants, and grits his teeth. “Keith is — badly hurt. He must have summoned you before losing — consciousness.”

Shiro tilts his head.  _ Did you bring him here, then? _ Regris slowly nods.  _ Then you have my thanks.  _ His nostrils flare.  _ You are bleeding. _

Regris nods again. “Please — if I die, tell Keith — the Blade of Marmora — in the Luxite Mountains –”

Shiro is pretty certain that wasn’t all he was hoping to say before he collapses, but unfortunately, he does so anyway. 

_ Regris,  _ Keith says, still too weak to speak aloud, or even open his eyes fully.  _ He  _ — _ is good. We need to...help him… _

Shiro sighs. He supposes he can set aside his petty jealousy for Keith’s kind heart. _ Very well,  _ he agrees, and pads across the cave to Regris’s fallen body, giving him a cursory sniff. _ He is still alive, but his heartbeat is even fainter than yours, and he is losing blood.  _

_ We need to help him,  _ Keith repeats. 

Who knew that a pirate captain would be the one to help him relearn the art of kindness after an Empire commander did his damnedest to beat it out of him? 

Shiro lays down beside Regris, curling his tail around the Galra’s prone body, and noting that he has a tail, too. It’s endearing, honestly. He huffs, exhaling hotly over both the Galra and his little yet strong mate. _ It will be alright,  _ Shiro promises them both, and for the first time, he believes it.  _ I will keep you safe now. _

With all his strength, Keith reaches up and lays his palm over the tip of Shiro’s curved muzzle.  _ I know. _

*

Keith opens his eyes for the first time in nearly a month to a place that is not a grimy cell. In fact, this place is about as far from a grimy cell as one can get. 

It’s a bedroom, with a wide window flung open to the sea air. Some tropical plants bloom in pots placed here and there, and there are shelves with a few books, and a few trinkets — shells, and polished driftwood, and a little ivory box. Besides these touches, the room looks barely lived in, but Keith is not alone there. 

Sitting before the window is Shiro, and Keith’s breath hitches. He remembers...the cave, and Shiro holding him, holding him like something precious, guarding him...he swallows. The Heartscale. He used it, he…

Keith tries to sit up and half-succeeds. He aches all over, but altogether his condition is much improved, and it is good to not be filthier than a hog after so many weeks of sitting in the ship's hold with not a single bath. Oh, no...come to think of it, someone must have bathed him...he doesn’t envy them. “I’m sorry,” Keith blurts.

Shiro turns at once, as if jerked from a dream, and he hurries to Keith’s bedside which, Keith realizes, must in fact be  _ Shiro’s _ bedside. He peers down at Keith with a complicated expression, as most of his expressions are, but not so complicated that Keith cannot read him. He’s  _ happy  _ — happy to see Keith awake? “Why are you sorry?” Shiro whispers. “You need not be sorry, Keith. You’re alive. You’re safe.”

Keith’s brow creases. “You aren’t mad that I used the scale?”

“That was the real me in your dream,” Shiro replies. Keith blinks. “You used the scale, but not against my will, Keith...you wanted exactly what I wanted.” His expression becomes far less complicated then: he’s relieved. “I was so worried I would get there too late...but you made it.”

Keith bites his lip. “Sorry,” he repeats. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I know if I had died, it would have hurt you, too —”

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice is firm, and trembles with...affection? Keith’s eyes widen. “That’s not why I was afraid of you dying. I was afraid, because I would have missed you. Very, very much.”

Keith stares up at him, a strange sensation of weightlessness in his chest, uncertainty falling away from him like a wave from its shore, leaving in its wake the chance for something new, something better, to take its place. “In the cave,” Keith whispers, “you called me your mate.”

Shiro blushes, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Er — yes. In draconic form, I am – that is – I can be more…”

“Feral?” Keith suggests lightly, and tries not to think of Shiro’s giant tongue.

Shiro winces. “Something like that. Um. I didn’t — intend to make you uncomfortable…”

“Shiro,” Keith says, disbelieving giggles bubbling up, “I asked you to tie me up and gag me the second time we bedded each other. We are long past discomfort. Aren’t we?”

“Perhaps past physical discomfort,” Shiro concedes, and tilts his head. “But...that idea does not make you uncomfortable?”

“Being your mate?” Keith’s own face warms. He clears his throat. “Should it make me uncomfortable?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro admits. “But we don’t know each other very well.”

“I feel like I know you,” Keith admits, quiet, more vulnerable than he meant. “Is that strange?”

“No...no, it isn’t,” Shiro murmurs, gaze dropping. “Keith...you must know, I feel the bond now —  _ our _ bond. I didn’t, before, because of the sigil meant to shield me from Sendak’s bond. It wasn’t because of you, Keith.”

Keith sucks in a breath. “And how does it feel to you?” he whispers. “Our bond, is it...bad?” 

Shiro bites his lip hard. “No,” he whispers back, like a confession, a secret he has wanted to share for a long, long time. “I have no idea what I’m doing, but Keith, it’s good. Really...really good.”

And as Shiro reaches out to him, grasping Keith’s hands in his own, hands he did not even realize he was lifting to meet Shiro’s, he feels it, feels that goodness, and it is the goodness of being no longer adrift, of finding, suddenly and sweetly, an anchor, one he never knew he needed. It does not feel like compulsion, like false enchantment or fleeting desire. It feels, Keith thinks, like coming home.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, either,” Keith whispers, “but — but I want to keep doing it, with you.”

“Yes,” Shiro breathes, and cups his cheek, and when he draws Keith up to kiss him, that is beyond goodness — Keith feels every bit of tension sink away from him, leaving him putty in Shiro’s hands, and it’s exactly how he wants to be. When Shiro pulls away, his eyes are fond, achingly so, and he doesn’t go far.

Keith wants to savor the moment forever, but as more fragments of the last few days return to him, he tenses, and Shiro makes a soft sound of concern, thumb brushing across his cheek in a gesture more calming than it has any right to be. 

“Regris,” Keith says, fearing the answer, “is he — he was hurt…”

“Yes, he lives,” Shiro replies, and to Keith’s surprise, crosses the room and plucks from the bureau two items: Keith’s knife, and a piece of parchment...no, an envelope, sealed with dark red wax. He returns to Keith, settling on the edge of the bed and handing him the letter and the knife. “I recovered this from the shipwreck, and as for this...Regris sent word to your mother, Keith. She sent this — it just arrived this morning. I thought...you should be the one to open it.”

“My mother,” Keith repeats, holding the letter numbly in his hands. “She wrote this?”

Shiro peers down at him. “Yes, Keith. Here…” He holds out his right hand, and Keith blinks at it, uncomprehending, before realizing Shiro’s silver claws are as sharp — if not sharper — as a letter opener. Shiro’s claw splits through the wax seal, and when Keith gingerly unfolds the parchment within, a strange scent fills the air — strong and smoky, like the whisper of a distant campfire.

His mother’s handwriting is awkward, large and blocky, but determined. Keith nods to Shiro, who reads it with him, over his shoulder.

_ Keith  _ — __

_ My apology to you will not fit on this paper, and these words cannot tell you what I feel. I apologize also for this. I am not used to writing many letters. We prefer to use a language that Regris says you know: the language of dragons. _

Keith’s eyes widen.  _ “What,” _ Keith manages, faintly.

_ You must have questions. I have answers  _ — _ and apologies. You may accept one, or the other, or both, or neither...but I hope you will accept both. I hope you will accept me.  _

_ There is one apology I can say here: I am sorry I was not there to save you, my son, every time that you needed me most. But, to the one called Shiro: I am grateful that you did what I could not. Regris says you are bonded to my son. This brings me great joy. Here, such bonds are the most sacred connections between beings. I hope it can be the same for you. Along with my answers and apologies, I offer guidance  _ — _ as much as I can give. But you are both strong, and good  _ — _ so if you do not accept this either, I believe the two of you will do just fine on your own. It is the best journey you will ever undertake. _

_ I offer one last thing: you know that we are against the Empire, and I do not wish the hard path we have taken upon you, but know also that should you wish to join the Blades on our path, you will be welcomed. You have already passed the trials of the Heartscale bond  _ — _ you have saved each other. And I think maybe you want to see the Empire’s end, too  _ — _ your Shiro was before that the Champion, and before that, an Altean royal guard. You broke his corrupted bond. You have already begun to defeat the Empire, both of you. _

_ But this paper is too small for such big thoughts. It has been too long, my son. Far too long. _

_ If it is what you wish, Regris will guide you to us. If it is not what you wish...know simply that I love you, and you were the best thing that ever happened to me. _

— _ Krolia. _

_ P.S. BURN THIS LETTER WHEN DONE. _

Keith opens his mouth. Closes it. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He —

“You’re awfully calm about this,” Keith exclaims, for Shiro is just smiling slightly. 

“Regris told me a few things, while you were out,” Shiro admits. “Somehow, it makes perfect sense that your mother is the leader of a group of dragon-riding Galran rebels.”

“Dragon riders aren’t real,” Keith splutters, and Shiro’s smile grows. “Right?  _ Right?” _

“Sendak was never my rider,” Shiro agrees, “but that’s because he was afraid, even though he’d never admit that. Our bond was wildly unstable, forged out of control and violence, and he knew it. To ride a dragon, I imagine the bond must be one of perfect harmony — unity in body and mind.”

“And heart,” Keith says, a little helplessly.

Shiro’s smile softens. “And heart,” he agrees. “But...yes, I was surprised, and then...I don’t know. I want to believe it, Keith. I want to believe that we aren’t alone, after all...because if they have dragons, that means there are others, other Alteans who survived.”

“Does Allura know?” Keith whispers, his heart pounding at the idea of it. He’s only seen one dragon at a time, and Shiro is the only dragon he’s seen up close, but the thought of a hundred dragons cresting the waves with their riders...it’s a thought that for the first time in a long time makes him think the Empire isn’t unbeatable after all.

“Not yet,” Shiro admits, “Regris wants it kept secret, and I understand why, but...I think she should know. She would want to help. She tries to pretend like she’s happy here, trapped in this human life she’s built for herself, but...she was meant to be a queen, Keith. She would have been damn good at it, too.”

“She could still be that,” Keith ventures, “one day.”

“One day.” Shiro’s eyes gleam brightly, and in that moment, Keith can no longer see a single hint in him of that battered, defeated creature waiting for death in Tuugamau. “We could do it, Keith. You have an entire ship, and something tells me your crew isn’t too fond of the Empire, either.”

“We rob them every chance we get, Shiro,” Keith chuckles, “so, no, we aren’t exactly the Empire’s favorite, nor they ours.”

Shiro looks down at him, the great excitement in him for a moment suspended, fading as he brushes a lock of hair from Keith’s face. “You know I’d gladly get my revenge against the Galra, and bring justice that’s long overdue...but you should know that, if you don’t want that life, because it definitely wouldn’t be an easy one...we could run away, Keith. Live a quiet life — try to, anyway. If that’s what you wanted. It could be nice.”

Keith blinks up at him. For a moment, he  _ does _ think of it — of the warm sea breeze in his hair, of Shiro beside him at the bow, of the world spread out before them in all its beauty and horror, theirs to explore, together.

But then he thinks of a cold prison cell, of blood on his hands, of the man all in white, of the look in his silver eyes when Keith leapt out the window. He thinks then of smooth scales beneath him, of a chill wind howling through his hair, of the thrill of saltwater spray and electricity on his skin, of the churning sea and the sinking ships with their torn, violet flags. He thinks of the others who were not so lucky as Shiro, the others who wait, bound in a way they were never meant to be, to someone who sees them as something to use, not as someone to give their heart to. Against his own heart, a shining silver scale begins to glow — soft, but strong.

Keith has no idea what he’s doing — but he does know how to be a pirate, and a damn good one at that. When he isn’t getting captured by bounty hunters, anyway.

“Nah,” Keith says, and squeezes Shiro’s hand. “We can live the quiet life when we’re old and gray. I don’t think I could live quietly. I think I’d get bored.”

“Old and gray, huh?” Shiro grins. 

“Only if you want,” Keith adds hastily, “if you’d prefer the quiet life, I can try, we can try that instead —”

Shiro shakes his head with a little huff and kisses him, and Keith stops talking, forgets anything and everything he was about to say. “No,” Shiro murmurs, “let’s go learn how to be dragon riding rebels and take down the Empire with your mother. If we have this bond — well, we might as well use it for something fun, hm?”

“Fun?” Keith snorts. “You know, I don’t think we need my mother to learn how to ride you.”

Shiro rolls his eyes and promptly tackles Keith to the bed. It’s silly, and unexpected. Shiro’s expression is goofy when he lifts his head to stop blowing raspberries into a flailing Keith’s chest. “Hmph,” Shiro says, pillowing his head on his arm, the two of them nose to nose. “And here I thought our bond was pure and wholesome.”

Keith sticks out his tongue. “Well, I never said _ that.” _

A moment passes between them. It’s a good moment, even if Keith can’t quite define it. It feels, perhaps, like an understanding...and a beginning, the start of something new, and good.

“Let’s do this, then,” Keith whispers, searching Shiro’s gaze, hope and excitement and adrenaline swirling through him all at once. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but if it’s with Shiro — it seems a little less frightening to face the unknown. “Together.”

Shiro hums in quiet affirmation, his smile infectious. He takes Keith’s hand in his own, lifts it to his lips, and places a single kiss upon his open palm. Its warm weight feels more precious than any gold coin, and Keith resolves to never let it go.

“A pirate and his dragon,” Shiro chuckles. “They don’t stand a chance against us, Captain.”


End file.
